Your Personality in Four Letters: DISC
A great deal of emotional fitness can be achieved by understanding different types of personality traits. If you know what category of personality your partner, your mom, your coworkers, your boss, your employees or literally anybody falls within, you are in a great position to influence one. You no longer are tempted to judge others based on having a different point of view or approach to a topic or situation. You increase your ability to learn a different perspective, approach a situation with more kindness and most importantly, you improve your persuasive power. One of the most famous tools to gain a deeper understanding of people’s personality and behaviour style is called DISC Assessment. This tool has been around for about 70 years and has been the subject of a great deal of psychological studies and researches.
But, what is this thing? Well, DISC is an acronym for four different types of personality and behaviour styles first proposed by psychologist Ph.D William Moulton Marston in the late 1920’s and standardised as an assessment tool by Walter V. Clark in the 1950’s. D stands for Dominance, I stands for Influence/Inspiring, S stands for Steadiness/Stability and C stands for Cautious/Compliance. Each of these behavioural styles have their own unique characteristics based upon how they make decisions. Decisions are made either fast or slow and are based upon reason or emotion, according to this system.
If one makes quick and impulsive decisions based predominantly on reason, logic, rationale, this person falls in the Dominant category. As the name suggests, dominant people tend to take charge of situations and don’t overthink or pay much attention to other people’s feelings. Dominant people want to get things done, move forward, get over with issues as quickly as possible. Although decision may hurt someone’s feelings, dominant people see feelings as hardships to be overcome to achieve goals. A positive aspect of having a Dominant personality is that this kind of people don’t go back on decisions they already made, whether it was a good decision, the job got done, whether it was a bad decision, they can move on to making another decision to get the job done sooner rather than later. Although this may seem quite advantageous in business, it has downsides. Dominant people may come across as rude, insensitive, selfish, prepotent and know-it-all. Therefore, it may be quite challenging for other’s to get along with Dominant people.
On the other hand, there are also people who are prone to make quick and impulsive decisions, however they base their decision-making process mainly on feelings and emotions. These are the Influencers and Inspirational folks. These people are great communicators, they engage people in such an eloquent way that is quite inspiring for those sharing the environment with them. They are the kind of people who’ll ask you “How was your weekend” and before you take a breath to answer they’ll go “oh because mine was absolutely amazing! Let me tell you what happened…”. These type of character live to socialize, to experience human connection to the fullest, to seek novelty and adventures. The best part of having a “I” personality in your life is that you’ll hardly ever get bored, they bring light and colour to brighten up the environment. However, not everything are roses with them. As they’re fast-paced enthusiastic adventurers, they may have a really hard time managing their time, sticking around and seeing things through. They’re constantly thinking and hence ready for the next adventure, the next project, the newest product and the latest event.
Although there are people who make quick and impulsive decisions based on either reason or emotions, there are also those who like to take their time to make a decision. Now, I invite you to think about that person who loves to listen to what everybody has to say. That chick who’s constantly thinking what others are thinking and feeling or that bloke who freaks out when is forced to make a decision under pressure. These are the “S”. They are steady and praise stability above all else. They need to run a project by every single person in the office and grasp their opinions before making their minds about launching a product. They are truthful and great support to everyone around them as they usually rather live behind the curtains, unbeknownst to the crowd. They live to see others succeed, ascend in live and excel. They just want to be part of everybody else’s success. Try to give them credits publicly and they’ll have a hard time accepting it as all they want to do is feel significant and part of team. Likewise all other personality styles, they also have their shortcomings. As they’re emotion driven decision-makers, they may choose to create a fantasy world where there’s no conflict whatsoever. One of the most complex issues in life for a character which seeks stability is dealing with conflict.
Lastly, there are also folks who need to take their time to make a decision but who take into consideration reason and logic very dearly. This is the Cautious, or Compliance, or Conscious behaviour style. These folks can’t help but spend hours, days and weeks on researching what’s the absolutely best option of tooth brush to buy taking into consideration thirteen different aspects of dental health. You’ll see these people spending their time on finding the cheapest store in the country to buy a backpack they want. They tend to be control freaks. Anything out of the ordinary will knock them out of whack. As they are great methodic researchers, they hate to being wrong or making mistakes. They will check, double check and triple check your work as well as theirs. Which one of these four personality types are you? if you’ve taken more than 5 seconds to know in your heart which one is more prevalent in you, congratulations, you’re a “C”. You’re thinking exactly which one resonates more with you because you don’t want to be wrong.
Jokes aside, all of us tend to have two of these more strong in our personalities. There’s no right or wrong, good or bad. There can’t be a best one, because it would mean the end of the plurality of the human race. The beauty of being human is that we’re all different, unique and special in our own way. And the importance of knowing these four behavioural styles is that you can begin to realise that the rules and values of the people around you are most likely different than yours. Therefore, you understand that we all have different ways to see the world, different fears, different strengths, different ways to manifest our love and expectations. By having such understanding, you can now stop trying to make people see things your way, you no longer have to convince people that your way is best. You can develop your relationships from a place of understanding, from the desire to learn to see life in a different way and thus create an extraordinary life. You can build your team and company from utterly valued to moving forward. Alone we go quick and perhaps drag some people along. Together, we inspire others to come along so we can go as far as our imagination let us.
