Meet the female Number Eight: Denmark’s fictional prime minister, Birgitte Nyborg, is both strong and sensitive

Subhuti examines this type using a fictional character.

It’s three days before the election in Denmark.

Nobody knows who will win.

Every politician is sweating like a pig in a Danish slaughterhouse, desperately trying to please the voters.

Birgitte Nyborg, the friendly-looking, 44-year-old leader of the small Moderate Party, is being questioned about her policies on the television news.

Suddenly, the interviewer reveals that Birgitte’s main political ally, Labour Party leader Michael Laugesen, has called for the deportation of all asylum seekers.

“Isn’t Laugesen reneging on your deal?” probes the interviewer, knowing that Birgitte’s policy is to protect asylum seekers

Birgitte tries to dodge the issue, but the interviewer is relentless.

“If Laugesen goes back on his promises to you, will you still be able to back him in the election? Yes or No?”

Birgitte’s spin doctor, watching in the studio, is jumping up and down, urging her to say “Yes, of course!”

The lady hesitates. It’s crunch time. She takes a deep breath and sticks to her principles.

“No, I can’t. If this is his policy, we can no longer support Michael Laugesen.”

An hour later, back in her office, with her election campaign in chaos, Birgitte is caught in a whirlwind of urgent talks with her supporters.

Then suddenly she tells them she’s leaving to pick up her kids and take them to a birthday party.

“Birgitte, are you taking this situation seriously?” asks her frustrated spin doctor.

Birgitte looks him straight in the eye, reminds him she’s working 16 hours a day for the election campaign, but draws the line when it comes to her family.

“It’s Saturday, five o’clock, I promised my children weeks ago I’d take them to this party and for the next four hours I’m going to be with them.”

So, within the first ten minutes of Borgen, the internationally acclaimed Netflix series about Danish politics, we see the complex nature of this woman: a strong but sensitive political leader, navigating her way through an election minefield.

At the same time, she is a loving mother who knows that quality time with her family is just as important as politics – well, almost!

Following my recent article describing a classic male Eight, King Henry VIII, I’ve been asked to profile a well-known female Eight. But it hasn’t been an easy task.

I’ve met plenty of female Eights in my workshops, as an Enneagram teacher, but identifying a famous figure proved harder than I expected.

Two historical queens, Catherine the Great of Russia and Queen Victoria of England, might fit the bill. But Victoria, with her melancholy moods, can also be tagged as a Four, while Catherine’s personality seems more like a driven, goal-achieving Three.

Modern female prime ministers like Indira Gandhi of India, Margaret Thatcher of Britain, Angela Merkel of Germany and Golda Meir of Israel all seem likely candidates, in terms of strength and toughness, but only Meir feels to me like a true Eight.

Besides, what we’re seeing here are women with strong masculine qualities, whereas my interest has been to find an Eight with a more feminine expression of this personality type.

Feminine Eights don’t necessarily want their strength to be visible to others.

For one thing, they’ve learned that many men are scared of powerful women.

For another, they want their femininity to be appreciated – providing it’s not misunderstood as weakness.

Some of my most difficult moments in Enneagram workshops have been in dealing with female Eights who don’t want to recognize themselves as such.

One particularly stubborn female participant refused to accept she was an Eight and instead declared herself to be almost every other type.

In response, I started giving her the silent treatment, refusing to answer her questions.

“Well, what do you see?” she asked me, finally.

“I see an Eight in denial,” I replied.

True to her type, she didn’t speak to me for a year.

During that time, some of her close friends eventually helped her see the light.

“Okay,” she said at last. “I am an Eight, but not because Subhuti says so!”

To women genuinely interested in understanding their own behaviour patterns, recognizing themselves as this type can be a revelation.

For example, one German woman hesitantly admitted she might be an Eight.

When I asked her why, she replied, “Well, when I married for the second time, my new husband brought his friends to our home and I brought my friends.

“And I noticed, after a while, that those of his friends whom I did not like stopped coming. I hadn’t said or done anything to make that happen. But obviously, somehow, they got the message!”

Another woman had a hard time seeing herself in any of the descriptions of the nine types.

Curious, I asked, “What is your relationship with authority?”

Unhesitatingly, she replied with quiet certainty, “I am the authority.”

I said, “You’re an Eight!”

One more, very touching, personal anecdote concerns the death of a dear friend, who discovered too late she had cervical cancer.

Accepting her own fate, she smiled and said in a puzzled voice, “I can’t believe the world is going to go on without me!”

Such a delightfully innocent expression of an Eight’s view on life!

So, with this background in mind, let us return to the political world of Birgitte Nyborg in the Borgen series.

For sure, she is a fictional character, but she offers a good example of a feminine Eight.

Firstly, she has the right body type. Eights are not always tall, not always big, but they usually have the appearance of roundness and solidity, letting everyone know that they’re not going to be pushed around.

Sidse Babett Knudsen, the Danish actress who plays Birgitte, shows the viewers a body type that is borderline between shapely and plump, between sexy and chubby.

So, we believe this character when she says she is struggling to keep her weight down. Physically, she makes a perfect Eight.

In temperament, too, Sidse seems close to her role as Birgitte.

When, for example, the producers wanted the character to be more politically feminist and aggressive in claiming power, Sidse refused, saying it would be more effective if it looked perfectly natural for an ordinary woman to become prime minister.

As a feminine Eight, the character of Birgitte can sometimes allow her vulnerability to show.

For example, even when she has enough political support to become Denmark’s first female Prime Minister, she hardly dares believe it will happen.

Kept waiting for 20 minutes at the Amalienborg Palace for the Danish Queen to authorize her to form a government, Birgitte is nervous.

“Something had gone wrong, can’t you feel it?” she worries, “I’ve lost the ball before the game has even started!”

Her chief advisor calmly reminds her that this Royal audience is the easy part. The wheeling and dealing over cabinet posts will be much more difficult.

Meanwhile, at home, Birgitte’s family is coming to terms with her new role.

At first, her husband, Phillip, is supportive, reassuring her that he will take care of the kids and everything will be okay.

But as Birgitte becomes more and more busy, staggering from one political crisis to the next, Phillip starts getting angry and Birgitte responds by becoming more assertive.

“That’s not an option!” she almost shouts at Phillip, overruling him on a family decision while running out the door to her next meeting.

“Stop!” she commands her own father, a long-time socialist, when he complains she is making too many political compromises.

In these moments, Birgitte’s behaviour shows the reaction of Eights under stress or when they are feeling insecure.

Rather than retreating, they come forward with their full energy and take over the space – or, at least, attempt to do so.

It is for this reason that Chilean psychologist Claudio Naranjo, who helped shape the Enneagram’s nine personality types, named the Eight “Coming on Strong.”

Helen Palmer, the well-known Enneagram teacher, simply called it “The Boss.”

But, as this portrayal of a female Prime Minister shows, intelligent Eights can recognize the power of others and won’t make a habit of continuing to fight when it’s time to make a deal.

For example, in one episode, Birgitte finds herself locked in a fierce struggle with Denmark’s most powerful businessman, who resents her new law stating that half the seats on every corporate board must now be filled by women.

The businessman threatens to pull his industries out of Denmark if she goes ahead, but Birgitte calls his bluff, knowing that he enjoys his elite status in Danish society too much to leave.

However, Birgitte is shrewd enough to ease the man’s defeat by giving him something else that he wants: extra time in implementing new environmental laws.

Here, then, is a subtle and convincing profile of an Eight that shows the complexities of the type.

In terms of her Enneagram Wing, Birgitte seems inclined to the Nine rather than the Seven, since she longs for relaxation and cosy indolence, while not really enjoying the multi-tasking that her job demands – one crisis at a time suits her better.

As for her Stress Point Five and her Security Point Two, I’m inclined to agree with Tom Condon, author of The Dynamic Enneagram, who argues that there are positive and negative attributes to be found in both directions.

For example, Birgitte may occasionally hit the low side of Five, in terms of morbid withdrawal from the political battleground, but she uses this retreat to get a more detached Five perspective on what’s been bugging her.

She’s good at connecting with the positive side of Two and its compassionate understanding of others, especially the disadvantaged elements of Danish society. And she does her best to steer clear of the demanding self-entitlement that Twos can display, although sometimes this erupts in her delicate relationship with husband Phillip.

By the way, all of these reflections on Birgitte are based on her statements and actions in the first Netflix series.

I’ve no idea what she’ll be like in series two and three.

But I’m pretty sure that, whatever happens, she’ll still end up being an Eight.

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