As the truism goes, knowledge is power. That’s true for self-knowledge, too. That’s where the DISC assessment comes in: With this tool, you can gain an understanding of how you—and your colleagues—work best. 

For instance, do you tend to speak up about problems, or hold back? Do you respond well to competitive situations or prefer collaboration? With an understanding of the factors that motivate you, as well as possible triggers that make it hard for you to flourish, you can improve your ability to communicate and collaborate at work. 

Here, a look at how exactly the DISC personality assessment works, the benefits of taking this assessment, and a review of the four personality types. 

What is a DISC assessment?  

A DISC assessment is a 30-minute quiz used to reveal your behavioral style at work. The quiz digs into your preferred work style and values, how you interact with your colleagues and other meaningful details. This assessment won’t reveal your intelligence (it’s not an IQ test), nor is it designed as a mental health assessment tool or aptitude test. Rather, this assessment helps break down your personality traits. 

The four DISC personality types are: 

• Dominance: Characteristics of this type are confidence and directness. People with this trait are driven by results and can be motivated by competitive scenarios (think: getting the highest sales numbers for the quarter). They’re skilled at viewing the big picture and taking charge, but may sometimes need help delving into the details or activities that require patience and long-term planning. 
• Influence: Just like influencers on your social media feeds, this personality type is social, enthusiastic and outgoing. This is a high-energy personality type. People with this trait gravitate toward collaboration and are skilled at building relationships. They may have a more challenging time with tasks that require organizational skills as well as understanding more introverted personality types. 
• Steadiness: People with this personality type are dependable and accommodating, but can also tend to be a bit resistant to change. They may also shy away from confrontation or even direct statements. You can expect calmness from this personality type, as well as skill with collaboration.  
• Conscientiousness: This is an analytical personality type with a focus on logic. People with this trait often thrive with a deadline. They value stability and deliberateness, and may sometimes be slow to make decisions or change course. Another potential challenge: Delegating projects or responsibilities, which can mean that people with this personality trait take on too much. 

People generally show at least some of each trait, and each of the four traits offers something valuable in the workplace. There aren’t good or bad traits, but rather different blends and balances, and the assessment shows how you balance those traits and where your strengths lie.

DISC results can help leaders create cohesive teams

Businesses around the world take advantage of the DISC assessment tool to:

• Gain self-awareness and knowledge. By identifying your dominant and secondary personality traits, you’ll grow your understanding of how you function. With these insights in mind, you may find yourself reevaluating past interactions with colleagues, or having a new understanding of why you thrive in some scenarios, yet find others a bit more challenging. 
• Increase collaboration. Whether or not you see your colleagues’ assessment results, you may find that thinking in terms of the DISC personality traits is meaningful to your interactions with others at work. Suddenly, a coworker’s difficulty delegating or getting organized will make more sense, and you may be able to adapt in response to cater to their personality trait. All in all, this understanding can lead to improved communication and collaboration. 
• Manage more effectively. If you manage a team, knowing their DISC results can be a boon. After all, what motivates someone with dominance as a primary trait is different than what motivates someone with steadiness as their main trait. Knowledge of DISC results can help you resolve conflicts, build successful teams and communicate better. Plus, you can assign out projects thoughtfully, giving tasks that rely on relationships to someone who you know has influence as a dominant trait, and data analysis to someone with conscientiousness as their main trait. 

How to use DISC knowledge to become a better leader 

Reviewing your DISC results can be interesting—and potentially overwhelming. There’s so much insight, and the question becomes: How can you apply your DISC knowledge to your business? Here are some ways that your DISC assessment results can help power your leadership skills: 

• Develop communication skills that match with others. Gaining knowledge into how you communicate best, as well as how the individuals you manage communicate, can help you relate to them better, adapt to their needs, and create a psychologically safe workplace. This leads to employees with greater job satisfaction who feel comfortable pointing out roadblocks, brainstorming solutions and asking questions. 
• Assign projects thoughtfully. Instead of thinking about tasks solely in terms of job titles, you can also consider the scenarios where individuals on your team thrive. Assigning according to their DISC assessment can help projects run more smoothly and effectively. 
• Know your own strengths and weaknesses as they apply to leadership. Depending on your primary DISC trait, you might be someone who tends to roll over others’ opinions, resist conflict, avoid interpersonal conflicts, or assume an overly Pollyanna-esque viewpoint, ignoring potential pitfalls. Knowing these tendencies can help you counteract them, which in turn, strengthens your leadership and department.  

Assessments can be a lot to wade through, and moving from insights and knowledge to action can be challenging, to say the least.  A SUCCESS® business coach can work with you to strategically apply your DISC assessment to your business. 

How the DISC assessment works 

In order to determine the balance of personality traits you possess, you’ll go through a questionnaire containing a series of statements and questions. You’ll score each of these statements on a scale. 

For instance, one statement in the DISC assessment might be, “I’d prefer to work independently rather than on a team.” You’ll be asked to say whether you agree or disagree with the statement, on some sort of a scale (e.g., strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree). 

Most likely, it will take under 30 minutes to complete the assessment. 

Once you’ve responded to every statement, you’ll receive your results. These will include your primary and secondary personality traits, as well as details about them.  This information can help you understand why you’re more comfortable in some situations than others, and how you relate to others, handle projects and challenges and so on. Depending on the assessment, you may also be assigned a percentage for each personality style. 

DISC personality traits have been used for over a century

Let’s take a short journey back in time: In the 1920s, William Moulton Marston, a psychologist, published Emotions of Normal People. In the book, he laid out the premise that one of the following four categories can be applied to everyone: Dominance, Inducement, Submission and Compliance. 

In the near-century since Marston’s book was published, various versions of DISC assessments have been developed to help determine a person’s mix of traits. 

With time, the names of the personality traits have shifted slightly—while the “D” still stands for dominance, inducement has shifted to influence, submission was renamed steadiness and compliance is now known as conscientiousness. Typically, assessments assign both a primary and a secondary trait—that is, a person’s main trait might be dominance, and their secondary one might be influence. 

Over the past decade, the assessment has been refined to be more accurate and applicable to modern workplaces.

Ready to learn what your DISC assessment results say about you? Take our free assessment today!

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