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The Enneagram Type 4 is the artist. This type feels deeply and longs for meaning and depth in their relationships and work. They will not be satisfied with the shallow.
Type 4’s are compassionate and idealistic. They care about others and can be very empathetic. This makes them great friends and caregivers. They desire to know others and to be truly known by others.
Fours are often full of passion and express this passion through the arts. They have good inner antennae for the feelings of others and are also very self-aware of their own emotions. These qualities make fours creative and lovers of authenticity.
Enneagram 4’s can often feel a sense that something is missing. They often have melancholic feelings of longing and seek to fulfill this longing through art, healing, or idealism. They often experience feelings of envy and comparison.
How Enneagram 4 Navigates Conflict in the Workplace:
Type 4’s tends to ascribe a heavy weight to emotions and feelings. This can lead to a lack of objective thinking. When this happens true resolution of conflict may be difficult.
During conflict Enneagram 4’s can be sarcastic, condescending, or overreactive. They also can be prone to attack others and seek unilateral support in order to crush the competition. If someone has a different opinion they often seek to find as many who hold their opinion in order to secure a win for their side.
Because they tend to get their feelings hurt easily type 4’s can avoid resolving differences and continue to nurse wounds. They also can miss the bigger picture by focusing on how a particular solution is a slight to them.
Type 4 can also lose a sense of objective thinking when it comes to how they handle others. They may be more sensitive to the emotions of others when it comes to resolving conflict. This means they may not seek the best possible solution but only the solution that saves face for the other person.
This extra sensitivity to others may also play out in not confronting others. They may sidestep an issue and not deal with it for some time until they blow up in anger or frustration.
What can we learn from the way type 4 handles conflict?
If you identify with these type 4 tendencies here are a few things you can do to improve how you handle conflict. Here are five tips for type 4's to deal with conflict in the workplace:
Use your emotions and passion to stir you to take action. The emotions you feel can be fuel to take action and confront others and resolve conflict
Balance your emotions with objective thinking. Take some time to step outside of yourself and think objectively about the situation. Emotions are important but they are not the only factor when it comes to resolving conflict or making a decision.
Focus on the conflict and not the people involved. Honestly examine the opinions of others. Don’t try to draw sides. Think of the other person as someone who is working with you to resolve the conflict and not as someone who is against you.
Enneagram Type 4’s approach to conflict in the workplace offers good lessons for all types. Feelings and emotions are important factors to consider when navigating conflict. It’s also good to have balanced thinking and a bigger perspective than our personal feelings about an issue. The healthy approaches of type 4 are great resources to add to our inventory of conflict management.