DISC Personified: A Day in the Lives of Four Communication Styles

As a business owner, understanding how to successfully communicate and interact with your team can be challenging, but is an essential requirement of your leadership role. All your employees are unique individuals, making it impossible to implement a one size fits all approach to effective engagement. The bigger the team, the more personality styles there are to navigate. That is why business leaders are increasingly turning to DISC assessments to gain understanding of their teams’  behaviors and communication styles. If you are not familiar with DISC, it is an assessment tool and an acronym for four quantifiable styles of behavior and communication. Each letter represents a core quality and is quantified on a color-coded scale of 1-100. Then DISC scores are graphed out and usually expanded on in a report that dives a little deeper into how this person naturally communicates with their peers and what personally drives them. DISC scores are not judged as good or bad; rather they are data points and visual representations that make it easier to engage with individuals (or entire teams) in the most constructive way.

What Does DISC Stand For?

The following are the four categories of behaviors and communication styles associated with DISC:

(D) Dominance. Confident, assertive, and results oriented. An individual high in D tends to be competitive and driven.

(I) Influence. High I’s are persuasive, outgoing, collaborative, and often charismatic. They are motivated by recognition.

(S) Steadiness. A high S is calm, supportive, and dependable. They are loyal, patient, and seek stability and consistency.

(C) Compliant. High C’s are concise, committed to accuracy, detail-oriented and analytical. The take pride in their conscientiousness and expertise.

Remember, each individual is assessed on the spectrum of each of these four styles. It should also be noted that participants may initially consider the assessment questions somewhat innocuous and toothless, only to discover how remarkably accurate their results are.

What Does DISC Really Look Like?

To gain a better understanding of the different DISC styles and how those behaviors manifest in a real-world setting, let’s take a look at a hypothetical business team who completed DISC assessments. While DISC is gauged on a spectrum of all four characteristics, each member of this team had very high scores in a particular style:

• David is a High D (Dominance). David is the CEO of the company. He is competitive, very decisive, and action oriented. David sometimes overlooks the details as he focuses on more high-level strategies. He is always striving for ways to make the business better and reach new goals. David likes to challenge his team.
• Irina is a High I (Influence). She is the Director of Marketing. Irina is natural influencer and promoter. She is very creative, social, joyful, and ready to share her insight or feedback with the rest of the team.
• Sanjay is a High S (Steadiness). He is the company’s Human Resources Coordinator. Sanjay is supportive and loves to ensure every employee is properly onboarded. He is diplomatic and patient. Sanjay sometimes falls back on the status quo, but with a little urging from his peers, he is also willing to adapt.
• Celine is a High C (Compliant). She is a Data Analyst. Celine is steadfastly compliant, methodical, and prides herself on her accuracy. She thrives on structure and is a top performer for the company. She would usually rather sit at her computer than interact with others in the office, as she is not really what you would call a "people person.”

At their team meeting, David announces a new product that he is excited to get off the ground. His goal is to launch in the next 60 days. David tells Irina, “We need an effective marketing strategy STAT. Sanjay, get the team ready to run. And Celine, can you generate our sales projections by end of day tomorrow?”

Irina is excited by the news and immediately starts brainstorming buzz-worthy, and perhaps costly, marketing ideas. She says, “That influencer we contracted with last year would be a fantastic campaign partner!”

Sanjay speaks up and says that he will ensure an even distribution of workload amongst the team. “I’ll check in regularly with R&D, and also confirm that we are adequately staffed. I don’t want anyone to feel overwhelmed.”

Celine quietly offers, “I can pull data and work with Accounting on determining the ROI on Irina’s influencer, but I need several days to ensure it is accurate.” While David would like this information tomorrow, he understands this might not be a reasonable expectation and admires Celine’s commitment to precision. “The sooner the better,” he replies. “But I trust you.”

Thanks to DISC, the team finds comfort and clarity as they move forward with the company’s new product. They leverage everyone’s known strengths, communicate better, and navigate challenges more effectively, leading to a smooth, collaborative and successful launch.