Values and Visions
by Jerome Wagner, Ph.D.
At the heart of each person’s style lie certain strengths and capabilities that enable us to survive and thrive. We experience these energizers as values or ideals. While all of these strengths and values are virtually or potentially present in our core self and while we are capable of appreciating and actualizing all of them, temperamentally we favor some over others and our values stack into a hierarchy, with one or a few being more potent than others. These values are the motivating and organizing tendencies that become central for each personality style, guiding our energies, perceptions, attitudes, emotional responses, and behaviors. They lie at the root of who we are and who we are striving to become.
To discover what are your cardinal value tendencies, you might reflect on what you would do if you only had one year to live. Where you put your time and energy tells you what you value.
Values orient and focus our vision. They tell us what’s important, what to organize our life around, what to live for.
From the Enneagram perspective there are nine sets of values and visions that appear as the following styles:
Style One: You value and are attracted to goodness. You envision making the world a better place to live in. You want to realize all of your potentials and help others actualize theirs.
Style Two: You value and are attracted to love. You envision making the world a more loving place to live in. You want to foster relationships
Style Three: You are attracted to and value productivity, industry, competence. You envision making the world more productive, organized, efficient and smooth running. You want to really make it a cosmos, a harmonious and orderly system.
Style Four: You are highly individual and value originality and uniqueness. You envision putting your personal touch on everything you are involved in. You also value beauty and want to make the world a more beautiful place to live in.
Style Five: You value and are attracted to wisdom, understanding, knowledge, truth. You envision discovering what is real, understanding the world, and making it more intelligible. You want to make the world a more enlightened place.
Style Six: You are attracted to and value loyalty. You stand by your commitments. You envision making the world a safer, more secure, more reliable, more trustworthy place to live in.
Style Seven: You want to enjoy life and experience all its possibilities. You value joy and were born to play. You envision making the world a more delightful place to live in.
Style Eight: You are attracted to, appreciate, and effectively use power. You envision using your strength to influence others and bring about a more just world where power and resources are equitably distributed. You want to live life fully and freely.
Style Nine: You value and seek peace, harmony, unity. You seek to make the world a more harmonious ecumenical place to live in. You want to feel at one and at home.
