Often Known As: Boss, Warrior, Challenger
Sin/Passion: Lust
Focus: on the power and strength needed to preserve their independence
Fear: of weakness and being submitted
Energy Center: Body (energy is asserted)
Social Stance: Assertive
Key Positive Traits (embodied at their best): Assertive, Strong, Powerful, Willful, Protective, Fatherly, No-nonsense, Decisive, Honest, Truthful, Magnanimous, Big-hearted, Inexhaustible, Fierce, Courageous, Heroic, Able to fight for what’s right, Has a good bullshittometer, Endlessly patient with friends and proteges
Key Negative Traits (embodied at their worst): Cruel with enemies, Unforgiving, Aggressive, Overbearing, Vicious, Lustful, Unable to resist own urges, Uncompromising, Intimidating, Impulsive, Foolhardy, Hooked up on intense experiences, An elephant in a china shop, Obtuse, Unwilling to make subtle distinctions even when needed, Unable to unclench
Directions of Growth and Stress: to Two and Five respectively

Introduction

An Enneagram Type Eight is usually hard to miss. Not seldom they are physically imposing–not necessarily because they are big or tall (the Enneagram has nothing to do with body type) but because of the kind of energy they emanate.

Eights enter a room and most people in there feel that they need to deal with them, one way or another. They exude power, they know they exude power, and they know you know they exude power. And they like it. Eights are not necessarily arrogant, but they are unwilling to let anyone trample over them, and will often take the opportunity to make it known at the merest slight they receive (sometimes even if no slight was intended).

Being on a Type Eight’s good side not only makes things easier, but it’s also a wonderful experience. They shower the people they like with all kinds of attention. It is like living between a cushion and a very, very soft place. Eights love pampering their friends, family and protégés just as much as they hate anyone that threatens them (either in reality or in the Eight’s imagination).

In fact, they have particularly developed protective instincts toward their loved ones, and average to healthy Eights often take the initiative whenever they feel anyone is being treated unfairly, especially if the Eight believes the person is too weak to defend themselves.

Fairness, truthfulness and honesty are the values that Eights usually cherish the most. They don’t have a cerebral definition of these qualities, but rather an instinctive understanding of it. Eights often feel that they had to toughen up early in life to avoid being treated unfairly or dishonestly, and their sense of justice will often come from their experience rather than from abstract principles.

In a way, they believe that they must still protect the tender side of their personality (figuratively, the small Eight child that still lives inside of them) and this they accomplish by making it known that they are a force to be reckoned with and that they are the one who are in control. This, of course, is where many problems start.

Core Mechanism

Eights belong to the Body triad, and they are the type that most directly and emphatically expresses their bodily energy. Out of all the nine types, Eights are the one with the most willpower, stamina and endurance.

In general, an Eight’s more or less subconscious drive is for independence, like all Body types. Eights achieve independence by either submitting others and being in control of the situation or by preventing others from submitting them. They have a strong sense of who is in charge of any situation, and they often look for ways to make those people know that they (the Eight) are not to be messed with.

An Eight’s greatest fear is of appearing weak, either in front of themselves or, even worse, in front of others. They have a sneaking suspicion that there is a weak point in them that they need to protect, often coming from some childhood event that left a mark. To compensate, they often act overconfident and cocky, and it is not unheard of that they will actively look for a fight, either physical or psychological.

Well-adjusted Eights are capable of using their endless drive in productive and fair ways, and their general sense of justice makes them often heroic. Less well-adjusted Eights can just as easily turn into overbearing villains that force their ways onto others.

Underneath it all, Eights are keenly aware of their vulnerability and deficiencies, and much of their subsequent behavior depends on how they deal with it. If they accept it as a core part of themselves, they can grow and allow others to grow with them, while if they deny it or hide it, it often leads them toward misery for themselves and others.

Passion

Type Eight’s passion is Lust. Lust must not be confined to sexual needs, although Eights may indeed have a strong sex drive. The word “lust” derives from a Proto-Indo-European root which means “to be wanton, unruly“. This is a good description for the Enneagram conception of lust.

Lust is a powerful inclination toward someone or something. The accent here is on “powerful”. Eights have a strong bodily energy, and crave using it to establish themselves and their dominion over anything or anyone outside of themselves. In a way, Eights love the idea of meeting resistance, and they actually respect those that are capable of offering it. By meeting resistance, Eights can overcome it to assert themselves.

When left unbridled, lust can become a source of problems for Eights, as it is a magnet for confrontations, but also because it tends to give them the idea that they simply need to reach for whatever they want and it will be theirs, regardless of what others think and do. This leads to the typical problem of Eights being wanton and having no self-restraint.

The lack of self-restraint of an Eight is different from that of, say, a Seven, as the latter seeks variety and fears confinement, while Eights seek intensity, even if just in one or two fields.

Unfortunately, the lustful attitude of an unhealthy to average Eight can lead to people becoming extremely resentful of them for behaving like the villains of a martial arts movie. As Eights already feel the need to protect themselves by being assertive, when they pick up on people’s less than friendly attitude they can be led to ramping up their aggression, which is obviously a recipe for disaster.

Misconceptions

It is not uncommon for people to describe Type Eight as the “bad” type. Even when explicit value judgments are absent, Type Eight descriptions tend to be less than flattering. Not that I think the Enneagram should flatter anyone, but we should certainly acknowledge that there is a place for every type.

The reality is that the aggressive mediocrity that rules our spayed and neutered world today is quite allergic to the kind of warrior-like values that Eights tend to embody. Eights are not inoffensive, they are not conciliatory and they don’t give a flying fig about not hurting other people’s emotions. They are, in the best sense of the word, predators, and predators go for the jugular.

This is not to say that Eights must be protected from criticism, either. First of all, they don’t need protection, and second of all, like every type they can become entangled in their own mechanism, with negative consequences for themselves and others.

What is true is that being in front of an average Eight *is* confronting, for two reasons: because Eights’ way of asserting themselves is of confronting others directly, and because people are generally used to exactly the kind of tea-and-cookies social niceties that Eights rarely provide. As with any type, there is plenty of room for others to learn something from Eights.

Wings

8w7: Eights with a Seven wing are generally hard to miss when you come across them. The in-your-face quality of Type Eight is magnified. They tend to be extremely quick-witted, though they are also generally pachydermic in their way of dealing with subtle issues. They rarely complain about anything and are possessed of incredible endurance and willpower.

8w9: Eights with a Nine wing are the archetype of the lioness protecting her cubs. There is a more conciliatory aspect to this subtype, and a tendency to use their power to hold together and protect the important bonds in the Eight’s life (this can be for better or worse). Usually, this subtype is more tranquil and laid back, although it still cultivates its sense of condifence that, in case of need, it can break a bone or two.

(note that wings can have some minor descriptive power in terms of superficial behavior, but they are irrelevant in terms of what motivates the person. Many people have no noticeable wing, while few show signs of both.)

MQS