Enneagram vs StrengthsFinder (CliftonStrengths): Which Should You Use?

The Enneagram and CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder) are both popular tools in coaching and professional development, but they serve fundamentally different purposes. CliftonStrengths identifies your top talent themes so you can maximize performance. The Enneagram reveals your core motivations so you can transform from the inside out.

This comparison will help you understand what each system offers, when to use each, and how the two can work together to create a powerful development framework.

How Each System Works

CliftonStrengths: Your Top Talents

Developed by Gallup based on decades of research into high-performing individuals, CliftonStrengths identifies 34 talent themes organized into four domains:

Executing Themes (how things get done): Achiever, Arranger, Belief, Consistency, Deliberative, Discipline, Focus, Responsibility, Restorative

Influencing Themes (how you influence others): Activator, Command, Communication, Competition, Maximizer, Self-Assurance, Significance, Woo

Relationship Building Themes (how you build relationships): Adaptability, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Includer, Individualization, Positivity, Relator

Strategic Thinking Themes (how you absorb and analyze information): Analytical, Context, Futuristic, Ideation, Input, Intellection, Learner, Strategic

After completing the assessment, you receive a ranked list of your 34 themes. Most people work primarily with their top 5 or top 10 strengths.

The Enneagram: Your Core Motivation

The Enneagram maps nine personality types, each built around a core motivation, fear, and desire:

• Type 1 — The Reformer: Strives for integrity and improvement
• Type 2 — The Helper: Strives to be loved and indispensable
• Type 3 — The Achiever: Strives for success and admiration
• Type 4 — The Individualist: Strives for identity and significance
• Type 5 — The Investigator: Strives for knowledge and self-sufficiency
• Type 6 — The Loyalist: Strives for security and guidance
• Type 7 — The Enthusiast: Strives for freedom and satisfaction
• Type 8 — The Challenger: Strives for control and self-protection
• Type 9 — The Peacemaker: Strives for peace and inner stability

The system further differentiates through wings, instinctual variants, and lines of integration and disintegration, creating a rich and nuanced portrait of each individual.

Fundamental Differences

Strengths vs. Motivations

CliftonStrengths answers: What are you naturally good at?

The Enneagram answers: Why do you do what you do?

These are profoundly different questions. CliftonStrengths focuses on your talents — the recurring patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that you can productively apply. The Enneagram focuses on your motivations — the deep psychological drivers that shape every aspect of your personality.

A Type 3 — The Achiever might score high on CliftonStrengths themes like Achiever, Competition, and Significance. CliftonStrengths would help this person leverage those talents for peak performance. The Enneagram would help this person understand that their drive for achievement is rooted in a core belief that they are only valuable when they succeed, and that genuine growth involves learning to find worth independent of accomplishment.

Positive Focus vs. Full Spectrum

CliftonStrengths takes a deliberately strengths-based approach. The philosophy is that you should invest in your strengths rather than trying to fix your weaknesses. The assessment does not identify flaws, blind spots, or areas of dysfunction. Everything is framed positively.

The Enneagram takes a full-spectrum approach. It describes each type at its healthiest, its average state, and its unhealthiest. It identifies defense mechanisms, blind spots, and shadow patterns alongside gifts and strengths. This honesty is what makes the Enneagram so powerful for genuine transformation — it does not shy away from the uncomfortable truths that drive the deepest change.

Performance vs. Transformation

CliftonStrengths is optimized for performance improvement. It helps people do more of what they do well. This is valuable, but it operates within the existing paradigm of who you already are.

The Enneagram is designed for personal transformation. It helps people understand and transcend the limiting patterns that hold them back. Rather than simply doing more of what you are good at, the Enneagram challenges you to grow beyond your type's habitual patterns into a more integrated, fully expressed version of yourself.

Skills vs. Character

CliftonStrengths themes describe what you can do. They are about capacity and talent. The Enneagram describes who you are at the deepest level — your character structure, your emotional patterns, and your way of relating to the world.

Practical Application Comparison

Career Development

CliftonStrengths Approach: Identify your top themes and find or create roles that align with them. If your top themes are Strategic, Ideation, and Futuristic, pursue roles that involve visioning and innovation. This approach is practical and immediately actionable.

Enneagram Approach: Understand the motivational pattern driving your career choices. A Type 6 — The Loyalist might choose stable, secure positions not because they lack ambition but because their core fear of being without support makes risk feel existentially threatening. Understanding this pattern allows for more intentional career decisions — choosing security because you genuinely value it, not because you are unconsciously driven by fear.

Leadership Development

CliftonStrengths Approach: Lead from your strengths. Build a team that complements your profile. If you are strong in Influencing themes but weak in Executing themes, surround yourself with strong executors. This is sound advice for building effective teams.

Enneagram Approach: Understand how your type pattern shapes your leadership. A Type 8 — The Challenger leader naturally provides decisive direction and protective strength, but may need to develop vulnerability and receptivity. A Type 9 — The Peacemaker leader creates inclusive, harmonious environments but may need to develop assertiveness and the willingness to make unpopular decisions. The growth path is specific to each type.

Team Dynamics

CliftonStrengths Approach: Map the team's collective strengths. Identify gaps in the four domains (Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, Strategic Thinking). Ensure critical strengths are represented. This is useful for task-oriented team optimization.

Enneagram Approach: Map the team's motivational dynamics. Understand why certain team members clash (a Type 1 and a Type 7 often frustrate each other because of fundamentally different relationships with structure and spontaneity). Build empathy by helping team members understand each other's inner experience, not just their behavioral style.

Coaching Conversations

CliftonStrengths Approach: "Your top theme is Empathy. How can you use this strength more intentionally in your current role? Where might this theme be creating challenges because it is in overdrive?"

Enneagram Approach: "As a Type 2, your capacity for empathy is connected to a deep need to be loved and needed. When does your helpfulness serve others genuinely, and when is it a strategy for earning love? What would it look like to care for yourself with the same generosity you offer others?"

The difference in depth is evident.

Strengths of Each System

CliftonStrengths Advantages

• Empirical foundation: Built on Gallup's extensive research database
• Specificity: 34 themes provide detailed differentiation
• Positive framing: Strengths-based approach is encouraging and motivating
• Organizational buy-in: Gallup's corporate reputation makes it easy to introduce in business settings
• Actionable: Results translate quickly into practical development strategies
• Standardized: One assessment, one scoring system, consistent results

Enneagram Advantages

• Motivational depth: Reveals the "why" behind behavior, not just the "what"
• Growth orientation: Explicit framework for personal transformation
• Relational insight: Explains interpersonal dynamics at a deep level
• Full-spectrum honesty: Addresses both gifts and shadow patterns
• Dynamic model: Accounts for how you change under stress and in growth
• Versatility: Equally applicable in professional, personal, relational, and spiritual contexts

Limitations to Consider

CliftonStrengths Limitations

• No growth framework: Tells you what you are good at but not how to develop as a person
• Blind spot avoidance: The strengths-only approach can prevent people from confronting important growth edges
• Performance bias: Optimized for productivity rather than personal fulfillment
• Cost: The full 34-theme assessment and coaching materials involve significant investment
• Surface level: Does not address motivations, fears, or defense mechanisms

Enneagram Limitations

• Complexity: Takes time to learn and apply accurately
• Typing challenges: Accurate self-typing requires significant self-awareness
• Emotional intensity: Honest self-examination can be uncomfortable
• Less standardized: No single assessment is universally accepted
• Potential for misuse: Types can become labels that limit rather than liberate

Using Both Systems Together

The most powerful approach is often to use both systems in complementary ways.

The Integrated Framework

1. Start with CliftonStrengths to identify natural talents and create initial engagement. Most people enjoy discovering their strengths, making this a positive entry point.

2. Layer in the Enneagram to understand the motivations behind those strengths. Why does this person have these particular talents? How do their strengths connect to their core drives and fears?

3. Use CliftonStrengths for tactical development — optimizing performance, role alignment, and team composition.

4. Use the Enneagram for transformational development — addressing blind spots, building emotional intelligence, and fostering genuine personal growth.

Example Integration

A client discovers their top CliftonStrengths themes include Achiever, Focus, and Competition. This is useful information for performance optimization.

The Enneagram reveals this person is a Type 3 — The Achiever. Now the picture deepens. Their drive for achievement is connected to a core belief that they must succeed to have worth. Their focus and competitiveness, while genuine strengths, can also become compulsive when fueled by this underlying fear.

The coaching strategy becomes: leverage your strengths (CliftonStrengths insight) while ensuring your drive comes from genuine passion rather than fear of worthlessness (Enneagram insight). This integrated approach produces far better outcomes than either system alone.

Making Your Choice

If you must choose one system:

• Choose CliftonStrengths when the primary goal is performance optimization, team alignment, or positive team-building in a corporate context
• Choose the Enneagram when the primary goal is personal transformation, deep coaching, leadership development, or building emotional intelligence

If you can invest in both, do so. The combination of CliftonStrengths' practical specificity and the Enneagram's transformational depth creates a development framework that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Ready to Become a Certified Enneagram Coach?

If you are ready to go beyond strengths identification to genuine human transformation, Enneagram certification is your path. A professional certification program will give you the knowledge and skills to facilitate deep, lasting change with individuals and teams. Explore accredited Enneagram coaching certification programs at The Enneagram University and add transformational depth to your coaching toolkit.