Enneagram Books

Suggested Reading

An internet search on "The Enneagram" brings up over 3,000 books and websites, making it hard to discern which are dependable, valid, and trustworthy. Here, as an initial guide, we present some personal preferences. We make no claim to this being an exhaustive list and have no commercial interest in promoting these or any other resources mentioned on this site.

What Type of Leader Are You?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda (2007)

Using the Enneagram System to Identify and Grow Your Leadership Strenghts and Achieve Maximum Succes

Ginger Lapid-Bogda shows how to use the Enneagram personality typing system to reach your full potential as a leader and to pinpoint your core leadership style.

HOT Leaders COOL Facilitators: Learning to Lead One Meeting at a Time

Bart Wendell (2013)

In many years of organisation consulting the quality of meetings (and conversation more generally) is a real litmus test for how well the organisation system and culture functions.

It's also a great place to start when keen to enable change.

Coaching and Counselling to the Point: Made to measure development work using the Enneagram (Enneagram to the Point)

Jeanette M.F. van Stijn MA (2021)

A true reference book and a practical manual for coaches, counsellors and spiritual directors who want to use the enneagram in their practice with clients and teams.

Bringing out the Best in Everyone you Coach’

Ginger Lapid-Bogda (2009)

An excellent guide for corporate and business coaches on how to create powerful growth programs tailor-made for each employee.

The Enneagram Development Guide

Ginger Lapid-Bogda (2011)

Ginger had been a successful Organisation Development Consultant for 20+ years when she first discovered the Enneagram and became a passionate advocate.

Since then she has pioneered use of the Enneagram in organisational development, business, leadership, coaching and consulting work. See also Ginger's website The Enneagram in Business

The 9 Types of Leadership: Mastering the Art of People in the 21st Century Workplace

Beatrice Chestnut (2017)

This book provides an amazingly accurate descriptor of personality, to help people in the workplace create more effective relationships, so they can be more productive and happy at the office.

The Essential Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test & Self-Discovery Guide

David Daniels & Virginia Price (2009)

A slim paperback and one of the best places to start if you're keen to discover your type. Also contains very helpful development practices for each type.

The same material and approach is used in the Enneagram Studies in the Narrative Tradition: online test

The Enneagram Made Easy - Discover the 9 Types of People

Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele (2007)

A fun, entertaining, illustrated and easy read. Great for newcomers to the Enneagram.

The Enneagram in Love and Work

Helen Palmer (1995)

Further reading by Helen Palmer where she expands on the role the Enneagram plays in relationships - both personal and professional.

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The ABC of the Enneagram: Identifying the Different Forces That Energise Us

Eric Salmon (2003)

Available in French as well as English, this book is accessible, humorous and compassionate, an ideal introduction to the Enneagram. As well as written descriptions of each type, cartoons are also used to great effect.

Principles of The Enneagram

Second Edition
Karen Webb (2013)

A slim, concise, yet comprehensive volume. Karen’s profound insight combines with succinct explanation of all the core concepts. Her many years of Enneagram teaching experience and spiritual searching shine through.

A great resource and often first recommended to clients and colleagues in the UK

The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life

Helen Palmer (1988)

We recommend any and all of Helen Palmer’s books, as a founding and inspirational teacher in the Narrative Tradition.

You can return to them time and again to be struck by new insight and clarity.

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

Beatrice Chestnut (2013)

A clear, comprehensive and thoughtful work which in particular describes and expands on the roles of the 27 subtypes in Enneagram typology

Subtypes: The Key to the Enneagram

Eric Salmon (2016)

This specialist book on Enneagram Subtypes explains the three subdivisions of each of the nine Enneagram types. In this book the potentially complex subject is accessible to all and thus offers the reader increased awareness of what is driving everyday automatic behaviours and habits.

The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues:
finding the way home’

Sandra Maitri (2005)

This is a deep and profound book that goes beyond the typology descriptions of the Enneagram of Personality, into an explanation of the spiritual aspects of this ancient system.

The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective

Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert (2008)

Keys to the Enneagram: How to Unlock the Highest Potential of Every Personality Type

A H Almaas (2021)

More accessible than Facets of Unity this new book from AH Almaas helps the reader realise their deeper self, beneath the outer personality and fixations.

Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas

A.H. Almaas (2002)

One of the foremost spiritual teachers of The Enneagram, AH Almaas endeavours to awaken the seeker to their true nature and the higher spiritual realities of The Enneagram of Holy Ideas.

'Enneagram Spirituality’

Suzanne Zuercher (1992)

Concise, readable, insightful.

Roaming Free Inside the Cage: A Daoist Approach to the Enneagram and Spiritual Transformation

William Schafer (2009).

A clinical psychologist with 40 years experience of working with infants, young children and their families it’s inspiring to hear Schafer say he’d never come across anything as useful as The Enneagram for understanding human nature in his work and personal life - and to credit it with enabling his happy marriage. Naturally of interest if you’re a Taoist, but still fascinating if you’re not. Particularly helpful: his distinction between the ‘structure’ and ‘content’ of type, the way in which type structure constricts the free-flow of life energy and his perspective on the triads.

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