The Everything DiSC Workplace Test Might Make You a Better Manager

No supervisor looks forward to dealing with difficulties or complaints from subordinates. Nevertheless, conflicts may arise in any situation involving a group of people coming together to work toward shared goals, and the workplace is no exception.While it is the task of leadership personnel to resolve these conflicts, sometimes this task can seem overwhelming, especially when emotions are high. The Everything DiSC Workplace Test is an assessment tool that can help managers gain a deeper understanding of how employees’ personalities influence their behaviours on the job, turning a wellspring of potential conflict into a wellspring of potential growth and productivity instead.

The growth opportunity for managers using this tool is not limited to learning more about subordinates’ personalities, either. Managers can also learn more about how their own personalities influence their management behaviours using the Everything DiSC Management Profile Leadership Test and, in turn, how to most effectively leverage their own inherent strengths in business interactions with both subordinates and superiors.

Assessing Personality

In the workplace, the inherent differences in disposition between coworkers can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how these differences are managed by leadership personnel. When it comes to being part of a team or dealing with any task that involves interpersonal relations, each employee has a unique mixture of personality traits that determines his or her behaviours. Using the Everything DiSC model, a team member’s personality can be rated according to the degree to which he or she exhibits the four basic DiSC dimensions (dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness), as well as which of the eight DiSC priorities (challenge, action, results, accuracy, enthusiasm, support, collaboration and stability) he or she places more value on.

Taking Advantage of Strengths

Everyone’s personality is made up of some combination of the four basic DiSC styles, and no personality type is better or worse than any of the others, but people with different behavioural styles have different strengths when it comes to workplace performance. Recognizing this allows a manager to more closely match job responsibilities to employee strengths, and to build teams composed of members whose DiSC styles naturally complement one another as well as the task at hand.

For instance, when building a team to handle a task requiring a lot of collaborative effort, a manager might lean more toward an employee with a steadiness-prevalent personality, as this personality type tends to be more judicious and cooperative. When looking for an effective team leader for a time-sensitive project, on the other hand, a manager might lean more toward an employee with a dominant-prevalent personality, as this personality type tends to be more assertive and outcome-oriented.

Understanding Motivations

The Everything DiSC assessment also reveals employee motivations, which can help a manager realign work tasks to increase workplace fulfillment and decrease workplace stress. For instance, an employee who values feeling challenged more than feeling supported will probably be more fulfilled performing tasks that require innovation, while an employee who places a high value on stability will likely do better performing predictable tasks.

No matter how disparate employees’ temperaments may be, a diversity of personalities is potentially one of a company’s best assets, when managed wisely. Skilled, trained leadership personnel can make use of the insights gained through the Everything DiSC Workplace Test to promote more effective overall workplace relations and build happier, more productive employee teams.