Today we´re finishing our tour around the three instinctual biases in Awareness to Action (ATA) that we started two weeks ago and continued last week (if you don´t know what I´m talking about, I encourage you to start this article series from the beginning, by reading here, here and here).

The third instinctual bias is dedicated to transmitting, and it´s represented with a bright and colourful peacock (even though this particular icon is black and white). What comes to mind when you imagine a peacock unfurling its tail feathers and appearing in all its glory?

The thought of attracting attention may have crossed your mind, and yes, you´re on the right path there. The core theme for the transmitting domain is attracting and bonding, that is, making themselves get noticed and catch people´s attention to be able to transmit something to them, be it their genes (in fact, in traditional Enneagram terms, individuals with this bias are said to have a "sexual instinct") or their ideas, beliefs, values, their point of view or something they have created. They are naturally charismatic individuals who attract attention without consciously seeking it, perhaps through the way they dress, speak, or behave.

From an evolutionary point of view, our ancestors developed certain behaviours to increase their probability of attracting a mate and reproducing, which, at the end of the day, is the same thing the male peacock does when he unfurls his tail feathers and parades in front of the female. But in humans, the concept of transmitting goes way beyond that: not every person with a transmitting bias is seeking to reproduce and have offspring; what they do have in common is a tendency to want to bring a piece of themselves out into the world, and to want to leave their mark, in their own style.

People with a transmitting instinctual bias unknowingly pay a lot of attention, and give a lot of importance, to topics related to:

• Asserting
  • They´re usually ambitious and self-confident individuals, who go after what they want.
  • They have low levels of inhibition: they don´t feel uneasy about saying or doing whatever is needed in order to achieve their goal.
  • They have higher intensity levels than preservers and navigators, and a tendency towards competitiveness.
• Broadcasting and narrowcasting
  • Through their charisma, their charm, their appearance and behaviour, they send signals to the group to become the centre of attention, transmitting to their general audience (broadcasting).
  • Once they have secured someone´s attention, or if they´re interested in a particular person, they tend to narrow down and focus exclusively on that person (narrowcasting).
  • In their one-to-one relationships and conversations, they establish a very intense bond, even if it´s brief.
• Impressing
  • They are individuals who seek to impress, to have a specific impact on those around them.
  • They tend to be really good at influencing and convincing others, both individually and as a group.
  • They usually seek to leave a mark in this world: their legacy, a piece of themselves that gets transmitted to the next generations.

At work, transmitters (that is, individuals with a transmitting instinctual bias) are usually good at presenting and promoting their projects or products, as well as promoting themselves. They tend to be great salespeople and charismatic leaders, who know how to convince, inspire and paint a vision for the future that guides and energises the team, moving things forward.

Let´s remember once more that the instinctual biases are essentially systems of values that point to what we consider most important in life, and in consequence, push us to prioritise certain things over others. But this doesn´t mean that transmitters are always transmitting non-stop, or navigators navigating, or preservers preserving. These patterns are helpful because they uncover general tendencies that are observable throughout time, independently of specific points in time, because we all do a bit of everything at different moments, and nobody does the same all the time.

Something else we also need to take into account is that certain stages in life are very closely related to one of the instinctual domains, causing us to temporarily focus more on that domain, even if it´s not the most natural one for us. For example:

• The teenage years are decidedly navigating: our parents are no longer our main reference; now it´s our friends and classmates, and we spend (or want to spend) a lot more time with them than with our family.
• Later on, when the moment comes to start our professional career and look for a sentimental partner, we get into a phase that´s much more transmitting: we go out into the world to show what we have.
• And further down the line, the child-rearing years bring about a significant amount of preserving: it´s time to tend to the nest, to make sure our offspring is well cared for and can grow safely without lacking anything.

As you can see, this topic of the instinctual biases, which may seem very simple, and in a way, it is, is also full of nuances worth taking the time to explore and observe. The good news is that it also has loads of practical applications. In a future article, we´ll talk about how the three domains arrange themselves in order of priority according to the dominant bias, and how all of this shows up in our day-to-day, at home and at work.

But for the moment, what are your thoughts on this description of the transmitting bias? Does it resonate with you? Once again, I encourage you to observe yourself during the week, and see how much time and attention you dedicate to behaviours typically associated with this domain.