Emotions, Candor & The Enneagram: 4 Questions for Kaley Klemp

Kaley explores how to put Conscious Leadership into action.

Today’s interview is with Kaley Klemp, someone who has fundamentally shaped how I think about leadership and self-awareness. Kaley’s work in conscious leadership is a masterclass in leading with intention and integrity, and her insights might just challenge how you approach your growth and collaboration.

KALEY WARNER KLEMP is a sought-after speaker, YPO and executive team facilitator, and transformational executive coach. She advises senior executives on how to uncover and address core challenges in communication, trust and culture. Kaley is an Enneagram personality model specialist, helping organizations outperform their competitors by unlocking a deeper understanding of what motivates and drives people. Kaley co-authored The Drama-Free Office and The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership and wrote 13 Guidelines for Effective Teams. Her new book, which she co-authored with her husband, The 80/80 Marriage: A New Model for a Happier, Stronger Relationship was a New York Times Editors’ Pick. See her TEDx talk and learn more about Kaley at www.kaleyklemp.com.

I love the section on ‘Emotions Are Allowed’. You write briefly about the value of emotions that are not tied to blame, victimhood, or other thoughts. How would you guide someone to identify the healthy message underlying an emotion? How do you know you’ve found the healthy message?

Asking yourself, "What is this emotion trying to tell me?" is a vital question. It helps you determine whether a boundary has been crossed, if something needs to be released, or if there are amends to be made. Emotions are not simply good or bad based on purity; rather, it's about extracting valuable information from them to fully benefit from what they offer. By doing so, you prevent these emotions from cycling repeatedly. When emotions are entangled with blame or self-righteousness, they become sharp and lose their purpose, which diminishes the personal growth they can provide.

Can you make the case for why someone should try on the possibility that the opposite is true? I often find myself being quite resistant to doing this, I have noticed the same in others. If you’re able to share the benefits, I think many of us would be more willing to fully participate in this exercise.

Get curious about the resistance to considering the opposite because my guess is that there is discernment and insight there. The objective is to mostly notice where we are attached and sure we are right about our perspective. The goal is to open the aperture. Where this gets weaponized or misunderstood, is when you say “I’m going to hold the other side with the same level of absolutism that I was holding the original story.” The real question is “Can I loosen how tightly I’m gripping this story by seeing the possibility of alternatives?” Because the opposite of my story sounds like there is only one opposite, in my experience, there are many alternatives to my story. If we can loosen that grip then it lets us see more possibilities for how we might engage with it. I also think it’s possible that as a person engages with this question, I might come back to my original story with a little more space around it.

You say in the book that your Enneagram type is not an excuse. I love this. Can you expand further on how you distinguish between authenticity and your type?

Part of why we say this is because people use their type to justify bad behavior. As an enneagram 1, the example would be ‘I can’t help being rigid and judgemental because I’m a 1.’ That’s not ok. The idea of authenticity is about recognizing tendencies and recognizing self-soothing patterns and then being able to exercise choice. Do you have a choice or are you constricted or contracted? With your enneagram type, you’ll be able to see your stuff and respond with choices or catch your patterns and say “Oh shoot, that was not the fullest version of me” and do something else.

When it comes to candor, where do you draw the line between sharing something honest that is productive to the relationship vs. sharing something honest that could be damaging to the relationship? Is there a filter that you apply to this, or is it simply that if you are holding on to a withhold, regardless of the content, you must share it? This may be a bit of a tangent, but the example I see often with my friends is sharing their attraction and desire to be with someone outside of their marriage or partnership.

It is really important to be aware of the impact that you are having in the world. Discernment is valuable. Choice is valuable. It’s just as constricted to say “I have a withhold, so now I'm going to barf it on you.” There’s no choice in that either. Instead, we want to say, “I have a withhold, what is this teaching me about me?” What’s a skillful way to share this and to whom? If you’re attracted to another person, is this something to explore with your therapist? Is there something missing in your relationship? Is there a request you can make? Or is there an appreciation of beauty you and your partner can be in together? People often misuse candor to avoid their feelings and their self-reflection. It’s important to be in the inquiry because it’s easy to trick yourself into believing that the discerning thing is to not say anything at all, and therefore keeping a secret and withdrawing from your partner. There are ‘watch-outs’ on both sides that require discernment.

There is a huge difference between a withhold, a secret, and confidentiality. A secret is something I don’t share because it creates fear and shame in myself, this is great to explore with your therapist. A withhold often creates distance in a relationship. So the question to work out is, ‘How can I reveal this to reinstate the connection?’ If the reveal is going to create more disconnection, then you’re back in the realm of secrets where it’s creating shame and fear in you, which you need to work out yourself. Confidentiality is where ‘I’m holding someone else's information; it doesn’t belong to me.’ There are very few - if any - situations that justify breaking confidentiality because that information wasn’t mine to start.