Author: Christina Bowser

Using DISC to determine whether someone fits the role of a ideal leader is precarious at best. Instead of focusing on ideal leadership DISC profiles, recognize that the most successful leaders are keenly self-aware and have the ability to effectively adjust their styles to meet the demands of their different roles.

Behavioral Characteristics of Leadership Styles

Different roles and situations require different leadership DISC profiles. The DISC model describes the four-quadrant model of human behavior. Each quadrant is associated with a style D , I , S , C. Styles can also represent a range of leadership styles on the DISC Model. The location of each leadership style reflects the impact of the different styles DISC.

Active leadership DISC profiles

A D-style leader focuses more on an authoritarian style of leadership where the leader is almost in complete control and in charge. It is also a highly targeted style where the leader leads the followers. The D-style often applies pressure to attain targeted, short-term goals. He or she will emphasize speed and quick execution. The leader talks and the followers listen.

A DI leader, who is a combination of D and I, more likely displays a dynamic leadership style. The I-style side presents a persuasive, charismatic and enthusiastic leadership style, but the D-style side demands quick results and competes to win. DI-style leaders are visionary pioneers because they focus on the big picture and orient to the future. DI-styles are active and energetic. They aim to lead by example. They are positive and optimistic thus, creating a positive atmosphere around them.

An I-style leader will be more informal and social. He or she focuses on creativity, positivity, enthusiasm, and energy, which is more valued than accuracy, tasks, or detailed rules. Emphasis on personal relationships and leading as a friend. The I-style leader promotes competitiveness through inspiration and not pressure.

People-oriented leadership DISC profiles

An IS-style leader, who is a combination of I and S, focuses on a participative leadership. Leadership focuses on cohesive team spirit and being open, friendly, and receptive. IS leaders work with followers and tend not to be hierarchical. Goals and responsibilities are shared. IS leaders often serve more as facilitators than directors.

Reserved leadership DISC profiles

An S-style will be a supportive leader who guides, teaches, and develops followers. An S-style leader emphasizes loyalty, consensus, trust and sincerity. S-style leaders support their team and provide and expect to receive mutual aid. S leaders emphasize gradual evolution while strongly focusing on agreed upon long-term goals.

An SC-style leader, who is a combination of S and C, focuses on being a leader who carefully plans. SC leaders are thoughtful, cautious, structured in their leadership. SC-style leaders generally operate in known areas. They are calm, but determined to do things the right way. They clearly communicate expectations and objectives, and carefully prepare to meet set objectives.

A C-style leader emphasizes quality, rules and compliance with righteousness. C-style leaders tend to maintain distance from the team thus, creating less interpersonal connection. The C-style leader focuses on a systematic approach and ensures everyone knows what is specifically expected. C-style leaders prefer using emails and written directions to communicate.

Task-oriented leadership DISC profiles

A CD-style leader, who is a combination of C and D, focuses on authority and centralized leadership. CD’s have high standards, expect compliance, and have low tolerance for errors and unauthorized changes. CD leaders prefer formal and hierarchical environments while emphasizing individualism. They prefer a structured and practical approach while relying on data and information.

Is there one ideal leadership style?

Successful leaders are determined in a very large part by how well they interact with their employees and others. The ability to effectively relate, communicate, influence and motivate others is a crucial skill in succeeding and creating successful, long-term relationships with subordinates, customers, prospects, colleagues, and stakeholders.

As we look at successful and highly regarded leaders around the world, it is clear that leaders come from all leadership DISC profiles. Each leadership profile brings unique sets of strengths of their styles. D-styles are decisive and not afraid to take control. I-styles are charismatic and connect to people. S-styles push up their sleeves and get things done while maintaining organizational core values. C-styles focus on doing things right and are often the experts in their fields.

Just as each DISC personality profile brings leadership style strengths, they also have areas they need to constantly and consciously develop. D-styles need to consider others and know when to not take too many risks. I-styles need to stay organized and maintain focus on the end goals. S-styles need to move and decide more quickly and think “outside the box.” C-styles need to be less critical (especially of themselves) and more open to unpredictability and surprises.

Key to successful leaders

Successful leaders are confidently self-aware. They know who they are. Highly effective leaders are aware of their strengths, but do not overuse them. They are keenly aware of their development areas and do not deny or ignore them.

Highly effective leaders are aware that they need to modify their behavior from one interaction and situation to the next. They understand that to lead, motivate and influence their employees, they must identify their styles and modify their own leadership styles accordingly. They are always mindful and present.

Great leaders make adjustments to their styles to match the demands of their roles, environment and everyone involved. Sometimes it’s most important to be a charming and charismatic leader like Richard Branson of Virgin Group. Other times, a leadership role may better fit Larry Ellison, former CEO of Oracle, who is large and in charge, brash, and demanding.  Sometimes it’s important to be a combination of charismatic and authoritative, but regardless of their natural behavioral style, the best leaders are ones who can constantly adjust their behaviors to suit the role, people around them and the situation.

They always adjust their leadership style.

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.

Douglas MacArthur

My age is 65 based on my musical tastes, my energy color is lavender, and I was a flamingo in my past life. We find social media quizzes intriguing and fun, but how accurate are they really?

Social media quizzes are everywhere

First of all, I’m age 65 because I picked the Beatles one time over Beyoncé? That hurts because I’m not even close to that age yet. I see social media quizzes online everywhere. They are fun to do and fun to share. Often, we take them to learn results we didn’t even know we needed. Have you ever taken a quick quiz on Facebook or Buzzfeed to determine the “real you?” I found a test that told me to choose an abstract image to determine my “Dominant Personality Trait.” There was another one telling me the results would reveal my outlook on life.

One reason there are so many of them out there is because they are easy to create and interesting to read the results. Many people create the quizzes for engaging audiences and simply for entertainment. There is also a business purpose in which companies use them to generate leads and connect with people. Personality tests and quizzes promising insight about yourself are online and accessible, but how accurate are they?

Getting results we want or results of who we truly are?

How does picking a color or a pattern determine how kind I am to others? After taking a few, you come to realize that yellow is going to be optimistic.  Old songs and bands are going to age you musically.  Slang words and sayings define your generation. Let’s be honest. We’ve all tried to answer these social media quizzes in ways to generate a desired result. If you know what the assessment is looking for then it is easy to manipulate the answers

There is a big difference between taking these assessments and taking one that truly measures who “you are.” Often, these quizzes focus on who we consciously want to be or feel we want to be. We see more of our conscious self image.

It is more complex to design an assessment to accurately measure your hard wired natural style. The natural style is the one that is most comfortable to us and how we prefer to do things. It’s also how we tend to react to things and the behavioral style that most likely shows up under pressure. It doesn’t mean that an accurate assessment of natural style requires a lot of questions and time, but it takes more development and consistent interpretation of results. For example, creating a tool to determine what stimuli (words) can cause the desired style of person to respond in a desired way.

Determining your dominant personality trait is not that easy

Obviously, enjoy and have fun with the social media quizzes. I have to find out what Harry Potter spell I need in my life right now. How about knowing your “true age?” or what your “spirit animal” is? Common sense will remind us to use them in the context of how they were created.

When we want to really find out more about ourselves then it is important to use an accurate and valid behavioral test or DISC assessment. Tools that give us incorrect or incomplete information about ourselves can lead to making the wrong decisions. Let’s say I took a quiz that told me I am a fierce lion that is dominant and in charge. I put myself in the role of lion. Under high stress and work demands it turns out I really more of a happy, fun-loving, pod-pleasing dolphin. I may have set myself up for more hurdles and problems than if I was truly aware I was a dolphin. Finding the right tool to determine your true behavioral style or DISC profile is critical to your success and development.

By the way, listening to what I say may be good advice since my dominant personality trait is “wisdom.” At least, that’s what my social media test told me.

One of the things that people really like about the DISC model is that it is completely non-judgmental. There are no good or bad categories. There are no high or low scores. Each DISC style is not better or worse. They are simply different.

DISC assessment does not make judgments

The adjectives and attributes describing the different DISC behavioral styles are neutral. For example, the word “direct” that is used to describe D-styles is simply a word. In itself ,it is not a “good” or “bad” word. Similarly, “analytical” is a word frequently used to characterize C-styles. Again, it is not a word that is somehow “better” or “worse”. In fact, all words we use to define each DISC style are neutral. This is the fundamental reason DISC creates a very safe and non-judgmental framework. In this setting, we can better understand others, value our differences, and to make better decisions in modifying our behaviors.

Different DISC styles do make judgments

As human beings we are judgmental. Whether we like it or not, we are constantly making observations and value judgments. When we meet someone, we very quickly form an opinion about the person. Our perceptions are typically positive or negative. “He talks too much” or “he is too quiet” are just two of many examples we could form as impressions. At times we even have difficulties in verbalizing our judgments yet we are very aware of them. “There is just something about that person I just don’t like,” is a familiar thought to many of us. At other times we really like someone and cannot clearly define why.

The same phenomenon also happens with places and situations. We find that certain environments are comfortable, energizing and pleasant to us while others have the exact opposite effect. One person may be really looking forward to going to an event, while another one would much rather stay home. This happens even though neither one knows who they might meet and their impressions are, therefore, not influenced by people.

Our DISC style has a significant impact how we perceive everything around us.

It is the filter that influences the judgments we make about everything and everyone. While an S-style individual may perceive another person fast to make decisions, a D-style may think the person is somewhat slow to decide. Even that the S- and D-styles are observing the very same decision-making scenario, their perceptions – and judgments – are different because they possess different behavioral styles. How the different styles define fast decision making are influenced by their respective DISC styles. In other words, how the styles define and, therefore, identify “fast decision-making” are clearly different.

If you think about your own experiences, it will not take you long to come up with similar examples. Perhaps you were in a social setting talking to a friend and a stranger joined in on your conversation for a few moments. After the person left, you realized that your friend’s perceptions of the very same individual were quite different from your own. Maybe yours were positive while your friend was not quite as impressed. This is a common example of two different DISC styles making different judgments about another person.

Have you even listened in dismay to someone excitedly describing her recent vacation? Perhaps, you were wondering how anyone would to waste their days off just reading a book by the pool? This is just an example of two different DISC styles finding different things enjoyable.

Confident self-awareness improves performance

The goal is not, of course, to have a similar vacation as your neighbor does or to like every person you meet. Instead, the goal is to become aware and mindful of how our DISC profile impacts our perceptions and not to let the resulting judgments create roadblocks to our success.

The main reason we use DISC is to make better decisions about how to modify behavior for more successful outcomes. In order to be able do so, we must have a solid understanding of the four DISC-styles, develop a confident self-awareness and learn to identify the styles of others.

Build awareness how your DISC style influences your perceptions

A part of developing confident self-awareness is becoming more cognizant how our DISC style impacts our perceptions of others and different situations. Without this awareness, we make misguided decisions about how to modify our behavior. Most people miss this important point completely. Our natural tendency is to focus only externally and not to become aware how our internal “DISC filter” impacts our perceptions. Being confidently self-aware means that we are mindful of our biases.

The awareness of our biases also influences how accurately we are able to identify the styles of others. As we saw earlier, everyone does not share our perceptions of other people. When we try to identify DISC style of others, we attempt to determine if they are people- or task-oriented, and active or reserved. If we only focus externally on observing and assessing behaviors of others and dismiss the impact of our internal biases, we are likely to make mistakes.

Recognizing Our Bias and Judgments Brings Awareness

Again, this is because we have different filters. Once we better understand our biases, learn to identity their impact, we can better control them. As a result, we are better able to exclude them while identifying others’ DISC styles. Just imagine how much more successful you will be in communicating, influencing, motivating and leading others. You are better able to make decisions on modifying your behaviors with only minimal interference of your biases.

As you note, I say “minimal interference” and not “no interference”. We are human beings and eliminating our biases and judgments is not possible.

One more note about out judgments. When we do make judgments, we become emotional. These emotions almost always make it more difficult for us to modify our behavior because emotions tend to plant us firmly in our comfort zone. Becoming more successful demands that we do get out of comfort zone. As you can see, being aware of the judgments we make, also allows us to become more aware of our emotions that may hinder our ability to adjust behaviors and succeed.