Why a DISC Assessment Will Help You Understand Your Own Behaviours

Why a DISC Assessment Will Help You Understand Your Own Behaviours, Communicate Effectively, Reduce Stress; Manage Conflict, And Be More Motivated.

DISC is the world’s most popular behavioral assessment, used by over 40 million people globally, that helps us understand our own needs-based behaviors, emotions, and fears, and helps us to identify those same things in other people. In this way, we understand how to communicate effectively with others, no matter what their communication style or blend is.

DISC is an acronym for the four behavioral styles that make up the DISC model: Dominance (D); Influence (I); Steadiness (S); and Conscientiousness (C ).

Unlike other types of behavioral assessments, DISC recognizes that people change over time and in specific situations, and relationships, and therefore does not put you in a particular “box” for life. This key differentiation makes DISC an exciting and trusting tool to use, whether you are using it for your personal development or professionally, as part of a team or organization.

With everything that’s transpired in our lives, mostly due to the pandemic, it’s important to find out how our behaviors have changed and its impact on both our personal and professional lives and be able to do this in an unbiased manner, cutting out the guesswork on what you think your behaviors are.

DISC, therefore, provides a common language that you can use to better understand yourself and to adapt your behaviors with others. Knowing your DISC profile, helps you increase your self-knowledge. For example, how you would respond to conflict, whether in your personal or professional life; how you would communicate with others, what motivates you; what causes you stress, and how you would solve problems.

So, how does DISC help you understand your own behaviors?

The DISC model identifies your preferred behaviors based on how you react in different environments. It explains how you prefer to do things, how you tend to interact with others, and how others observe or perceive you.

It helps you become self-aware and understand your natural behavioral style, so you can make better decisions on how to adapt them to improve your interaction with others. While it’s not always easy to adjust, but knowing what your natural preferences are, will help you to make the right adjustments. It also measures your adapted style and shows you the differences (if any) between your natural and adapted styles.

Remember, DISC does not measure your attitude, values, skills, or intelligence. The focus is on your natural behavioral style, providing you with supporting information toward your own personal development.

Using DISC to improve your own communication

Communication is the foundation of building personal and business relationships. Whether at home, socially, or in the workplace, if you have poor personal communication skills, you will alienate people and convey wrong or negative messages, detrimental to you, leading to conflict, stress, anxiety, and tension, which can all be avoided.

DISC uses an easy-to-understand methodology for better understanding behavior, temperament, and more specifically how people act, think, behave, and interact with each other. Identifying and knowing your own communication style will help you to identify the style of others, and how you can adapt your style when communicating with others.

Another fantastic benefit of the DISC model is the way in which it can incorporate objective data into your company’s hiring decisions. If you’re a job seeker, completing a DISC assessment will help you learn more about yourself. You will gain insight into your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences which you may never have realized before.

Have you ever wondered why a job or project which sounded so great on paper, or looked great for you to be a part of a project, ended up disappointing you in real life? Possible reasons could have been due to the nature of the job or project you were doing, the type of environment you were working in, the communication you had with your colleagues and superiors, or the lack of or insufficient control you were given, and many other reasons.

Therefore, completing a DISC assessment, which takes less than 30-minutes, can help you learn more about your traits, tendencies, and preferences.

It measures and provides insight into your four primary behavioral tendencies and emotions. It explores how these come together in a personal blend of style to create your DISC style.

The below overview is a guide as to the characteristics of each of the styles. You can accurately find out where you sit in each style by completing a DISC assessment. (Special offer below)

THE FOUR DISC BEHAVIORAL STYLES – Overview of Behaviours

Dominance – High “D” Style

  • Decisive actions and decisions
  • Likes control, dislikes inaction
  • Prefers maximum freedom to manage self and others
  • Cool, independent, and competitive
  • Low tolerance for feelings, attitudes, and advice of others
  • Works quickly and impressively alone
  • Good management skills

Influence – High “I” Style

  • Spontaneous actions and decisions
  • Likes involvement/engagement/fun
  • Dislikes being alone
  • May exaggerate and generalize
  • Tends to dream and gets other caught up in dreams
  • Jumps from one activity to another
  • Works quickly and excitedly with others
  • Seeks acceptance and acknowledgment, social approval
  • Good persuasive skills

Steadiness – High “S” Style

  • Slow to act and make decisions
  • Likes close, personal relationships
  • Dislikes interpersonal conflict
  • Supports and actively listens to others
  • Struggles with specific goal setting and self-direction
  • Has excellent ability to gain support from others and give support to others
  • Works deliberately and cohesively with others
  • Seeks security and belonging in all interactions
  • Good counselling skills

Conscientiousness – High “C” Style

  • Takes cautious action and makes careful decisions
  • Likes organization and structure
  • Dislikes involvement, prefers to work independently
  • Asks many questions about specific details to gather all information
  • Prefers objective, task-oriented, intellectual work environment
  • Wants to be right, so can be overly reliant on data collection
  • Works slowly and precisely
  • Good problem-solving skills
    • (Source: Assessments 24×7)

Conclusion

  • All DISC styles are equally valuable, and everyone is a blend of all four styles.
  • All DISC styles have unique strengths and challenges and no one style is better than another.
  • Your work style is also influenced by other factors that are not measured by DISC such as life experiences, education, MotivationsEmotional Intelligence, and maturity level.
  • Understanding yourself better is the first step to becoming more effective when working with others.
  • Learning about the DISC styles of other people can help you understand their priorities, needs and fears, and how they may differ from your own.
  • You can improve the quality of your workplace interactions by using DISC to build more effective, mutually beneficial relationships.
    • (Source: Assessments 24×7)

Final word …

This blog only provides you with a basic overview of DISC. There is so much more about DISC and more importantly, what the benefits are for you, should you decide to complete a DISC assessment.

Why not take up this special offer and complete your own DISC assessment. If you access the assessment via this blog, you will also qualify for a free, 1-hour Zoom coaching session with one of our experts, who will discuss your DISC report in detail with you and provide you with more insight into how you can advance your career, improve your communication skills, reduce stress, anxiety, tension, and build productive relationships with people both in your personal and professional life.

Keystone Admin

Administrator