A Deep Dive on DISC Personality Types: What's Yours?

DISC is an acronym that identifies four personality types: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. DISC personality types, first proposed in 1928 by physiological psychologist William Moulton Marston, are most often favored in the workplace or other professional settings because they focus on behavior, not other aptitudes like values or intelligence.

A Breakdown of DISC Personality Types

The DISC personality theory is a behavior model that divides a person's characteristics into four “types” to understand why they do what they do. There are explanations for each individual type, but keep in mind they can be combined in groups of two as well. So, some people may be an influence (I) type, while others may be an influence-dominance (ID) type or an influence-steadiness (IS) type.

Dominance Personality Type

• Key Traits - The key traits of the dominance (d) personality type are assertiveness and directness.
• Strengths - The strengths of this personality type, according to Christopher Hansen, a licensed professional counselor at Thriveworks in Austin, TX, is that they’re strong-willed and make quick decisions. They're also outgoing, focused, and self-reliant, and like a faster-paced work environment.
• Weaknesses - On the other hand, the weaknesses of this type of person are they can be so forceful and blunt that they may grate on people. While they may prefer a faster-paced work environment, they may also have trouble with teamwork and details. In fact, they may intimidate others with their forceful personalities.
• Typical Behaviors - These people are self-starters who enjoy taking risks and looking at the big picture to identify the next steps. Hansen adds that they have a “show me” personality; they don’t want to take your word for it; they want to be shown stats and facts to back up a claim. They’re task-oriented and enjoy a fast-paced work environment.

Influence Personality Type

• Key Traits - The influence (i) personality type’s key traits are to be social and happy to entertain.
• Strengths - Influencers are warm, great talkers, and like new experiences. They’re such good communicators in the workplace that they highlight positive things in difficult situations. They’re also accepting and love being with people.
• Weaknesses - However, influencers have a hard time with predictable routines. As Hansen observes, you won’t find any influencers on an assembly line.
• Typical Behaviors – Influencers are people-oriented and prefer faster-paced work environments where they can collaborate and use their socialization skills to their advantage.

Steadiness Personality Type

• Key Traits - The key traits of the steadiness (s) personality type are to be habitual but patient.
• Strengths – This personality type's strengths are being methodical, pragmatic, thoughtful, and good listeners. He observes they tend to look at a situation from all sides before making a decision.
• Weaknesses – Though steadiness types are good listeners, they often avoid risks or conflicts. As a result, they don’t work well with angry or undisciplined individuals and often aren’t productive in hectic situations.
• Typical Behaviors – Steadiness personality types are people-oriented but prefer a slower pace of work so they can listen, think, and communicate to the best of their abilities.

Conscientiousness Personality Type

• Key Traits - The conscientiousness (c) personality type’s key traits are being thorough and meticulous.
• Strengths – The strengths of the conscientiousness personality type are being competent and detail-oriented. Conscientiousness types attempt to be highly organized, focused, and insightful perfectionists who think logically.
• Weaknesses –Conscientiousness personality types may be great at problem-solving when a project interests them, yet if it doesn’t, they will slack off and take shortcuts.
• Typical Behaviors – When conscientiousness personality types love their work, whether researching a new topic or analyzing a new data set, they're productive and thorough. They’re task-oriented and prefer a slower-paced work environment.

Process for Identifying and Assessing DISC Personality Types

Paper and online assessments will tell you your DISC personality type and those of others. These can be used in professional and personal settings.

If you don’t know a person’s DISC type, you can also use the OAR — observe, assess, recognize — model to assess their personality. You would do that like this:

1. Observe the behavior of the individual you want to categorize. Look for what they talk about but also how they talk. For instance, dominance and conscientiousness types use “I” and “me” more, while influence and steadiness types use “we” and “us” more. Using body language can help, too. For example, a person may be more extroverted if they’re a dominance or influence type or subdued if they’re a steadiness or conscientiousness type.
2. After you’ve observed the individual, assess if they’re more active (dominance or influence) with animated, assertive body language and strong eye contact, or reserved (steadiness or conscientiousness) with calm or quiet speech, and whether they’re task-oriented (dominance or conscientiousness) with talk about things or tasks or people-oriented (influence or steadiness) with talk about people or feelings.
3. Take everything you’ve observed and assessed so far and recognize their personality type, whether it's dominance, influence, steadiness, conscientiousness, or a combination of two of these possibilities.

Tips for Dealing With Each DISC Personality Type

Knowing someone’s DISC personality type will give you an idea of how they operate in personal and professional settings. For example, Hansen observes that if he were working with someone who’s either a conscientiousness or steadiness type, he would “have a discussion with [them] and go ‘OK, now let’s look at it from both ways and let’s see what we come up with,’ because that’s how they operate. With a dominant person [on the other hand] sometimes…. you would be a little more directive.”

Here are some additional tips for dealing with each personality type.

Dealing With Dominance Types

• Provide direct answers
• Act quickly
• Have support for your assertions
• Ask for their decisions
• Focus on results

Dealing With Influence Types

• Maintain a positive atmosphere
• Take time to talk and socialize
• Allow them to express themselves
• Focus on the big picture
• Focus on people

Dealing With Steadiness Types

• Proceed at a slower pace
• Provide enough time for them to reflect
• Ask for their opinions
• Speak with an eye toward fairness and justice
• Give time expectations to allow for planning

Dealing With Conscientiousness Types

• Focus on the key issues
• Answer questions calmly and carefully
• Be thorough in your presentation
• Utilize supporting materials
• Listen carefully

The DISC personality types give you, Hansen says, “a little bit of insight into how someone might think and operate.” So knowing your DISC types can give you an idea of how you “respond to conflict, what motivates you or stresses you out, how you solve problems, it can help you improve teamwork, it can help make conflict more productive, it can help with training,” explains Hansen. These things can all be improved by knowing your DISC type and that of others.