September 3, 2024 · Michael Bertrand
Arrogance is a multifaceted concept, particularly in the context of leadership and personality types. When examining its role within the Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) and the Enneagram Type 5, we find a shared pattern worth understanding — not to judge, but to illuminate a path forward.
Within the Leadership Circle Profile, arrogance functions as a reactive tendency — a defensive pattern through which leaders shield themselves from perceived threats to their ego or status. Rather than fostering genuine collaboration and openness, this protective mechanism creates distance from vulnerability.
Leaders operating from this reactive pattern tend to:
Over time, this pattern damages trust, reduces psychological safety, and limits organisational effectiveness. The tragedy is that arrogant behaviour is usually self-protective — driven by fear rather than genuine contempt for others.
Type 5 personalities — known as "The Investigator" — accumulate knowledge as a primary strategy against feelings of inadequacy and scarcity. Their quest for intellectual mastery can manifest as a form of intellectual arrogance: a sense that knowing more insulates them from the discomfort of not knowing.
Type 5s tend to withdraw emotionally into the realm of intellect, where they feel competent and in control. This withdrawal can create a perception of elitism — appearing indifferent to emotional realities, treating feelings as secondary to reason, and maintaining superiority through knowledge.
The irony is that this pattern, born of insecurity, often creates the very isolation it was meant to prevent.
Both frameworks reveal a shared underlying dynamic: detachment serves as protection. Whether a leader maintains emotional distance to preserve control, or a Type 5 retreats into intellect to avoid vulnerability, the underlying motivation is the same — to maintain a sense of superiority and avoid the discomfort of authentic connection.
Understanding this is not about blame. It is about compassion — for the person who learned, at some point, that keeping others at a distance was the safest strategy available.
Addressing arrogance requires two simultaneous movements: cultivating humility and embracing vulnerability.
For leaders identified by the LCP as operating from arrogance, this means:
For Type 5s, it means acknowledging the limitations of pure intellectualism — recognising that genuine competence encompasses emotional connection alongside knowledge. The capacity to be moved by others, to be affected, is not weakness. It is depth.
Personal and leadership growth does not happen in comfort. It happens at the edge — in the moments of discomfort that invite us to expand our range. Leaders who can move through arrogance toward genuine humility discover something unexpected: the vulnerability they were protecting against was never as dangerous as they feared.
True leadership strength lies not in imperviousness but in the ability to adapt — to be genuinely present with others, to receive as well as give, to remain open in the face of challenge. When arrogance transforms into authentic confidence, it becomes one of the most powerful developmental moves available to a leader.
The Leadership Circle Profile and Enneagram are powerful tools for understanding and transforming your leadership patterns.