Early in life you got a game together that supported your safety and success. Over time the patterns of these safety strategies formed the pathways of your behaviour. They have an up side and a down side. On the down side, the negative impacts of your ego defences can seem beyond your control. In fact they are somewhat invisible and often you are blind to what is really going on. You have created your very own Matrix!
Mostly we call this personality. On a good day you access your gifts and strengths developed through years of playing to your strong suits. On a bad day your overplayed strengths can become weaknesses, and you suffer these pitfalls in the form of relationship difficulties and misguided communication.
When you have a map for understanding your self created Matrix, you can manage unhelpful behaviours and interact more successfully with others. The 5 Character Structures (5CS) is just such a map. It provides a deeper level of psychological insight for today's leaders.
American physician and psychotherapist Alexander Lowen, developed ‘Bioenergetics’ based on Wilhelm Reich’s breakthrough work on embodied character. Re-purposed for business, The 5 Character Structures offers a kind of X-Ray Vision for understanding yourself and others. In short it works something like this:
Everyone is seeking safety
As children, we figured out two or three ways to feel safer
Now those safety strategies run our lives
Many of us live inside our safety strategies
Being caught in a safety strategy distorts our thoughts and feelings
Different safety strategies distort our perception in different ways
People using different safety strategies live in different worlds
But we only see our version of the world
To have control over your leadership and life, you must understand your own safety strategies
To relate effectively with others, you must understand their safety strategies
The 5 Character Structures offers this understanding and provides the keys to building better relationships with anyone. Most personality models deal with how people act, 5CS also deals with why you react. It is a body-mind based model of personality (rather than a psychometric instrument), which helps you understand why you do what you do, and why others do what they do. It requires no questionnaire or evaluator.
The Matrix you created (armoury), is initiated in childhood. Over time, the repeating patterns of this armouring become your Character Structure. There are 5 primary ways that people will armour, and each of these 5 ways has predictable behaviours and corresponding physical, mental and emotional attributes.
On the one hand, 5CS is about how you protect yourself and the strategies you employ to keep yourself safe. On the other hand, it is about how that same armouring created a unique you, complete with strong suits and gifts.
Sometimes you assume the things you do are just the way you are. Learning The 5 Character Structures reveals the unseen prison of your personality. It helps you liberate your gifts, overcome limiting behaviours, and move on from patterns that no longer serve you. You get to break free of your Matrix!
Do you recognise unhelpful behaviours in yourself that are the result of overplaying your strengths?
Have you ever considered that other peoples unhelpful behaviours may in fact be their safety strategies at play?
Try viewing your family, colleagues and team mates through the lens of safety strategies this week… What shifts when you do?
Matt helps leaders and teams develop their mindset and resourcefulness so they can relate productively, communicate effectively, and navigate challenge, change and complexity with confidence.
Through coaching and training, he empowers leaders with better choices and more options for progress - building better leadership from the inside out.
Curious what that could look like for you or your organisation? Let’s talk.