The DISC model describes personality through four behavioural styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. A DISC test asks how you tend to act, especially at work and with other people, and shows which one or two styles you lean towards most. Everyone uses all four styles to some degree, so a DISC result describes your usual preferences, not a fixed label.
If you would like to see how a personality questionnaire reads before you take a DISC assessment, try a free personality test.
What DISC stands for
DISC is an acronym for its four styles:
- D for Dominance: a focus on results, decisions and getting things moving.
- I for Influence: a focus on people, enthusiasm and persuading others.
- S for Steadiness: a focus on cooperation, support and keeping things stable.
- C for Conscientiousness: a focus on accuracy, quality and getting things right.
The ideas behind DISC come from a 1928 book on emotions and behaviour by the American psychologist William Moulton Marston. He did not create a test himself. Questionnaires based on his ideas were developed by others in the decades that followed. Some older versions use different words for the letters, such as Compliance instead of Conscientiousness, but the four styles are the same.
How the DISC model works
The four styles are usually shown as four quarters of a circle, made by two simple questions.
- Are you more outgoing and fast paced, or more reserved and steady paced? D and I are more outgoing. S and C are more reserved.
- Are you more focused on tasks, or more focused on people? D and C lean towards tasks. I and S lean towards people.
Put those together and you get the four styles: D is outgoing and task focused, I is outgoing and people focused, S is reserved and people focused, and C is reserved and task focused.
The four DISC personality types
| Style | Tends to be | Motivated by | At work, often | Under pressure, may |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dominance (D) | Direct, decisive, competitive | Results, challenge, control | Takes charge and moves things forward | Become impatient or blunt |
| Influence (I) | Enthusiastic, sociable, persuasive | Recognition, collaboration, fun | Builds relationships and energises the team | Overcommit or lose track of detail |
| Steadiness (S) | Patient, supportive, reliable | Stability, harmony, helping others | Keeps the team steady and follows through | Avoid conflict or resist sudden change |
| Conscientiousness (C) | Analytical, precise, careful | Accuracy, quality, expertise | Checks the detail and sets high standards | Become overly critical or slow to decide |
Most people have a blend, such as a strong D with some I, often written as Di. Reports usually show your main style, your secondary style and how strongly you express each one.
A DISC example at work
A project deadline has been brought forward by a week. Here is how each style often reacts.
- D: “Right, what can we cut? I’ll make the call and tell the client.”
- I: “Let’s get everyone together. If we all pull in, we can do this.”
- S: “Who is already stretched? Let’s make sure nobody ends up doing it all.”
- C: “Which checks can we still run properly? I don’t want errors going out.”
None of these responses is wrong. A good team uses all four: someone to decide, someone to rally people, someone to look after the workload and someone to protect the quality. That is the main reason employers use DISC: to help people understand why colleagues react differently to the same news.
What a DISC personality test looks like
A DISC assessment is usually a short questionnaire. Two formats are common:
- Word or statement groups, where you choose which of several options is most like you and which is least like you.
- Rating statements, where you say how far you agree with each one.
Most are untimed and take a short time to complete. There are no right or wrong answers, and the best approach is to answer as you usually behave at work, not as you think you should.
Is there one official DISC test?
No. The DISC model is not owned by a single company, so many publishers produce their own DISC assessments with their own questions and reports. This is why two DISC tests can describe you a little differently. If an employer gives you a DISC profile, read it alongside what you know about how you work.
How employers use DISC
DISC is mainly used for team building, communication training, management development and sales training. It is less often used to decide who gets a job, because it describes style rather than measuring how well someone is likely to perform. If you do meet it in a recruitment process, answer it as honestly as any other questionnaire.
DISC compared with other personality models
DISC focuses on observable behaviour in four broad styles, which makes it quick to learn and easy to use in a team workshop. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator looks at how you prefer to take in information and make decisions, and gives you one of 16 types. The Big Five model scores you on five traits and is the one most used in research and employer questionnaires.
For an overview of how all these tests fit together, read what a personality test is. If you have an employer’s questionnaire coming up, our practice personality test helps you get used to the format.
