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4 Employee Personality Types: Understanding and Managing Different Personalities in the Workplace
What if I told you that the ‘golden rule’ doesn’t apply to the workplace?
Every person has their own unique set of characteristics, and it's no easy task to bring them all together as a team. Yet, that's your primary job as a manager.
Understanding and managing different personalities at work is a vital skill to create a high-performing team.
We all tend to make the mistake of assuming that others interact and think the same way we do; this is called a false conscious bias. As a leader, you feel it's expected that you must treat everyone equally- but the golden rule is wrong.
We need to treat others the way they want to be treated, which means that what works for one person may not work for another. You have to differentiate between the two as a manager.
Effective leadership in the workplace hinges on intrinsic concepts at an individual personality level. What motivates and inspires one person isn't the same for others.
But to effectively lead a team, you must understand what makes each member tick.
By understanding your team's different personalities, you will learn how to work effectively with each individual, understanding how to energize them, communicate with them, and bring them together as a unit.
This guide clearly outlines how you can understand and manage the different personalities on your team with insights provided by the DISC personality assessment.
Want to find out your results right away? Take our FREE DISC Assessment.
👉 Learn the DISC personality model's four personality types you'll find on your team, including how to identify them and what makes them tick.
👉 Understand how to manage each personality type. This section of the article will explain how to help your team work together more effectively.
👉 Discover how you can help each personality type cope with the "always-on" culture and why your management capabilities play a crucial role in employee well-being.
Table of Contents:
Why DISC is Important for Leaders
Leadership is all about understanding people.
Knowing the different personality types, you’ll understand each other, yourself, personalities and personal quirks; why we communicate a certain way or how we show up at work and how we show up at home.
As manager, if you can understand your people better, you can lead them more effectively. You can get them to where they need to be by coaching them. And you can create that high performing team that you want when we personalize leadership.
A lot of us grew up with this golden rule, right? We were taught that we must treat others the way we like to be treated. This is the golden rule of life, this is what we teach children from elementary school on: Treat thy neighbor the way you want to be treated.
Here's the thing, the golden rule is wrong.
It's fundamentally wrong because it makes one huge assumption- that others want to be treated the way I want to be treated.
So, when we treat others the way we want to be treated, what we're doing is we're not considering them.
Most of us in our leadership and mentor journey, do exactly that. We manage others the way we would have wanted to be managed or, "I'm giving them feedback, I'm strict with them. This is what we need, this is what I needed."
We lead in a way that we think we would have needed because that's how we like things.
But it's not about how you like things, it's about how they want things.
And so we introduce the platinum rule.
That's right, where we're going to treat others how they want to be treated. But I guess the question is, how?
How do you treat others how they want to be treated if you don't understand how they want to be treated?
Most of us operate with the golden rule because we know the way we want, and so we focus on that. Even in our personal relationships with our partners, we love them the way we want to be loved not perhaps how they want to be loved. And in leadership, it is so accurately the same because we lead others the way we think we want and not what they want.
When I discuss this idea, a lot of times people say, "Well, Fahd, that sounds like we're just accommodating to everyone." You're just going to accommodate, you're going to constantly change the way you do things for every single person? You're not going to have a system, you're going to have a process? That's ridiculous."
We're not accommodating our entire process, our entire way of doing work, our entire style of leadership, we're tweaking. We're tweaking our style so that it works for different people. We're providing different options so that more people can show up the way they need to.
Really that is what allows us to grow and allows us to have really effective leadership when we tweak and we adapt. Because relationship management, which is fundamental to all our leadership practice, is predicated on that concept.
Before reading on- have you got a few minutes? The best way to learn about the platinum rule is to understand your own personality. Check out our FREE DISC Assessment here!
What is DISC? And What is Not?
Disc is a famous personality assessment that helps create a categorized understanding of individuals' typical patterns of behaviours and emotions.
DISC will help you recognize each specified personality style's characteristics, including your own, and help you and your teammates change your communication to meet other individuals' needs on your team.
To get a first-hand look at the questions asked in the DISC Assessment, check out our FREE DISC Assessment here.
DISC is about needs and motivation. It's understanding observable behavior, emotions, and patterns.
It's a combination of both nurture and nature because what we understand about personality is that there's a level of genetics to it, but a lot of it forms in two primary stages of your life:
- During the ages of five to seven, your initial personality starts to form.
- The end of puberty also creates another layer to your personaity
Just like when we touched on the ‘growth mindset’ from Carol Dweck, we learned that mindsets form really early on.
And, perhaps we spend the rest of our lives really unpacking those mindsets that are created in childhood and reforming them.
And much of our personality is formed during those formative years.
Personality can change. We know that through DISC studies; different people who've done assessments throughout their life have seen slightly different variations.
During big life moments-whether it's having children or a loved one passing away- personalities and behavior patterns shift.
So, if you have experienced something traumatic or huge in recent years, you might see that your behavior and your personality has shifted over the years. And this could be a great moment for you to self-reflect and look at some of your own self-awareness pieces.
DISC IS:
- A tool to help you communicate better with your team members
It is NOT a measure of intelligence, skills, experience, education, or a values indicator.
A+ Personality
When I used to do these in person, we would do a DISC assessment and people would say, "Fahd, look what I got, is this a good score?"
They're all good scores.
I used to get everyone to write A++ at the top of their sheet - because there's no good personality or bad personality.
There's no personality that makes a better leader or not.
The DISC is a tool that helps us see the style in which you approach challenges, in which you approach leadership.
Ready to find out your personality type? Take the FREE DISC Assessment!
The Four Different Personality Types
DISC is a famous personality assessment that helps create a categorized understanding of individuals' typical patterns of behaviours and emotions.
The purpose of this psychometric tool is to give teams a common language to improve their understanding of one another and their communication skills with each other.
DISC will help you recognize each specified personality style's characteristics, including your own, and help you and your teammates change your communication to meet other individuals' needs on your team.
You must remember that DISC is a tool to help you communicate better with your team members. IT IS NOT a measure of intelligence, skills, experience, education, or a values indicator.
Want to take the test before you read on? Can you predict your personality style? Find out which personality you are with our FREE DISC Assessment here.
According to DISC, there are four different personality styles that people fall under:
1. The “D Style” 💪
The D personality is commonly known as dominant or direct.
We tend to classify these individuals as leaders conventionally. They're people who like to be in charge and get the job done.
Ds are fast-paced and task-oriented and place great value on time frames and seeing results.
Their common traits tend to be assertive, self-confident, goal-oriented, strategic, competitive, and strong-willed.
D individuals respond well to pressure, a professional/no-jokes environment, and like direct answers. They require a challenge, control, and choices.
A D's ideal environment includes freedom, authority, challenging assignments, and the opportunity for advancement.
The D personality type fears being taken advantage of, loss of control, and vulnerability. Their limitations include lack of concern for others, impatience, and insensitivity.
Ds bring big picture goals and tangible results to the team and motivate others to follow an inspiring vision.
A D's strengths include the extraordinary ability to challenge the status quo and think outside of the box, both of which make them great innovators.
You can easily recognize a D by their outgoing disposition. They act confidently, make quick decisions and are not afraid of risk.
2. The “I Style” 💃
The I personality is known as interactive or influential. Is live by the motto "have fun while you do it" and love being with people.
Is are fast-paced and people-oriented, which makes them energetic, friendly, enthusiastic, and charming.
They want to enjoy an exciting life experience and respond well to recognition and approval.
An I's ideal environment includes:
- Prestige.
- A chance to share ideas.
- An opportunity to influence others.
- Friendly relationships.
They fear social rejection, disapproval, and being ignored. I's are limited by their own impulsiveness, disorganization, and lack of follow-through.
Is are your team cheerleaders. They encourage and motivate others and keep environments positive with their energy and humour.
They're also naturally creative problem solvers who love to bring new ideas and solutions to the table.
Your I team members are recognizable by their talkativeness, animated facial/body expressions, and charming and poised disposition.
3. The “S Style” 🧘
The S personality style is known as steady or supportive. They live by the High School Musical song; We're all in this together. 🎶
The S personality style is people orientated like the I, but work at a slightly slower pace.
S's are very dependable and understanding. They're a classic team-player who is helpful, patient, and accommodating.
They require an environment of support and cooperation that includes established routines but remains relaxed and cordial.
S's require appreciation, harmony, and teamwork and respond well to assurance and time to adapt and process information/tasks.
The S personality type fears a loss of stability, change, and offending others.
Their limitations include being too accommodating, avoidant of change, and indecisiveness.
S's will always finish what they start and work to provide for the team's needs as a whole.
An S is easily recognizable by their even tempers and soft-spokenness. They're natural listeners and ask lots of questions.
They exhibit patience and have slower moving body language compared to Ds and Is.
4. The “C Style” 🕵️
The C-style personality is called conscientious or cautious and is primarily concerned about getting things done right, aka they're your traditional perfectionist.
Cs are systematic and precise. They think logically and analyze everything.
The C personality tends to keep to themselves, quietly follows protocol, and is skeptical of things before accepting them.
Cs respond well to specific instructions, strict protocol/procedure and want time to validate their work.
They require answers, excellence, and details.
A C's ideal environment is structured and orderly, has clearly defined tasks, rules, and procedures, and provides them with sufficient time and resources to complete projects.
The C fears criticism, unstructured methods, and, most importantly, being wrong.
Their limitations include isolating themselves, being overly critical (of themselves and others), and overanalyzing things.
Cs are task-oriented and slow-paced, so they complete every project they commit to in great detail. They provide reality checks for the team and make great planners.
You can recognize a C from their careful speech pattern. They tend to be former and proper and exhibit fewer facial expressions and gestures than Ds or Is.
Now that you have a better understanding of each personality type on your team, it's time that you learn how to communicate and manage them better. Keep reading to unlock the secrets to better team management. 👇
A Deeper Look at the Four DISC Styles
Below is a chart to help you understand some of the characteristics of each of the Four Basic DISC Styles — Dominant, Influencing, Steady, Conscientious.
Use this chart to interact with each style more effectively.
Although behavioral style is only a partial description of personality, it is quite useful in describing how a person behaves, and is perceived, in personal, social and work situations.
Ds need to...
✔️ Practice “active” listening.
✔️ Project a more relaxed image.
✔️ Develop patience, humility, sensitivity.
✔️ Develop empathy.
✔️ Verbalize the reasons for conclusions.
✔️ Be aware of existing rules.
✔️ Verbalize compliments to others.
Is need to...
✔️ Control time and emotions.
✔️ Spend more time checking, verifying, specifying and organizing.
✔️ Follow through on agreements.
✔️ Concentrate on the task at hand.
✔️ Take a more logical approach.
✔️ Complete more of what you start
Ss need to...
✔️ Say “No” occasionally.
✔️ Complete tasks without an oversensitivity to others’ feelings.
✔️ Take risks by stretching beyond your comfort zone.
✔️ Delegate to others.
✔️ Accept changes in procedures.
✔️ Verbalize feelings and thoughts.
Cs need to...
✔️ Openly show appreciation.
✔️ Try shortcuts and time savers.
✔️ Adjust more readily to change and disorganization.
✔️ Work on timely decision making.
✔️ Compromise with others.
✔️ Use policies as guidelines, not laws.
Managing Different Personality Types
As a manager, you must understand the different personality types on your team. Understanding each personality will help you know what your teammates need from you to be more productive and how to communicate with each personality type effectively.
To effectively manage the different personalities, you must first understand your disposition first.
To learn what your DISC personality is take this free DISC personality quiz.
After you take the quiz, I encourage you to check out the Unicorn Leadership DISC Style Assessment tool.
This tool will help you make sense of what your DISC personality means and how it affects how you show up in the workplace.
To download the resource simply sign up with your email below. 👇
Knowing your personality is an essential component of successful management because if you want to relate to your teammates, you must first understand yourself.
Understanding yourself and being able to relate that understanding to how other people interact is called emotional intelligence. To learn more, check out my article, A Manager’s Guide to Improving Emotional Intelligence at Work.
Once you’re aware of your own needs, you can start to understand how to interact with others, which will help you create a thriving environment for the entire team and its members.
For example, if you are a D personality type and your teammate is an S, you’re both going to communicate and need different things from your environment.
To elaborate, if your teammate is an S style when you give them tasks and are communicating with them as a D, you will have to ‘take it down’ a notch.
As discussed in the section above, Ss, while people-orientated, are also slower-paced than Ds.
While you can depend on an S to always complete their tasks, you must accept that it might take them slightly longer to complete it than you think it would, which means you will have to accommodate for that when giving them deadlines.
On the other hand, if you were dealing with an I, you can count on them being more fast-paced, like yourself. But, Is also tends to be slightly more disorganized than a C or an S so, you’ll often have to remind them of their tasks throughout the week.
Tools such as ClickUp are especially helpful for managing Is as they help create an organized task assignment and schedule that teammates can regularly check to stay on track.
To help you understand how to communicate and manage each of your team’s personalities better, I have comprised a summary of what each personality type needs from their manager and how they like to communicate.
Dealing with a D
Ds thrive on being productive, and they expect the same from their manager.
They want their communication with you to be quick and to the point.
You must be confident in your communication with a D and include specific guidelines to follow in their tasks.
Give Ds the freedom to set their own goals, as this will help give them a sense of control.
Interacting with an I
As we know Is love people, which means they require social stimulation from others.
Don’t be afraid to over-communicate with an I as they thrive on interaction. Never ignore an I and try to ensure their tasks aren’t too repetitive.
Is react best to managers who are positive, upbeat, and enthusiastic in their communication.
Supervising an S
Ss thrive in friendly environments that are cooperative and prioritize teamwork; this means Ss want their managers to be kind, understanding, and patient.
Ss, by their very name, are steady, so they don’t like surprises and thrive completing repetitive tasks consistently.
Remind Ss that you appreciate their hard work and always give them plenty of time to finish their tasks.
Communicating with the C
Cs are obsessed with perfection and getting things done right and expect you to be accurate and structured in your communications with them.
Avoid interrupting Cs and try to be supportive with your feedback to them as they fear mistakes.
When you’re giving Cs a task, make sure to provide them with a reasonable timeline and avoid giving them vague details.
Be open-minded when you communicate with Cs as they’re good at pointing out different perspectives because of their analytical views of the world.
How Different Personality Types Cope with an Always-On Culture
The greater your team’s well-being, the better their quality of work will be, and the more productive they will be.
In this new, fully remote working world, prioritizing employee wellbeing has become more critical than ever.
As a manager, your employee’s well-being is your top priority and helping them find a productive work-life balance is crucial to their success and the team’s effectiveness.
To help your employees balance their professional and personal lives, take the time to understand how each of them copes with the new virtual reality they find themselves in.
Remind your D personalities that not everything has to be done at once. Tell Ds to take the time to turn off their notifications when they’re not at work. Caution Ds of burnout as these personalities are especially susceptible to it.
For Is you will want to allow casual conversations during video meetings and create a non-work related conversation channel on your communication tools such as Slack or Microsoft Teams.
I-personalities thrive on human interaction, and it may be incredibly difficult for them to not be in the office currently. As a manager, you have to do your best to create informal office communication in the online workplace too.
Ensure that Ss know you are understanding of their needs in this remote work transition and remind them you are there to support them.
Don’t be afraid to give an S a little extra time to complete a task if they need it, and try your best to make sure their online jobs mimic their in-office tasks as closely as possible.
Be sure you give Cs lots of structure in their new online projects. Remind them to take a break from their screen, and as they will likely tend to obsess over projects of every shape and size without thinking of their blue light consumption.
👉 For more help in supporting your team’s online work transition, check out my free remote management team checklist. You’ll learn immediate changes you can make to improve your team’s productivity, engagement, and communication in the online office.
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How to Complete Your Personality Test
Access your FREE DISC Assessment here!
There are rules for completing this assessment because you can go about it wrong.
But there are no wrong answers when you get to it, but you can go about it wrong in which you're distracted.
To get the most out of your test you should:
Do it in one go.
You have to do this alone all in one go. Sit down, focus and complete it. It takes about 20 minutes to do when you're really focused.
We've got to make sure that we're focused on doing this test all in one go because that allows it to be more authentic, more real, and the answers to be more accurate.
Avoid distractions during the assessment.
You want to avoid any distractions, otherwise, you don't take it very seriously, and personally reflect on how you truly show up. It's important you are not distracted with Slack or text messages or a phone call or if you are working from home, that your kids around.
Take it very seriously.
It's going to ask you questions on how you think you show up at work, how you believe you show up at home and so on and so forth. This is your time to personally reflect and truly how you show up.
Do it alone, and not with others.
You want to do it alone, so it's not for others to do. It's not for others' opinions. And it's all about how you believe you show up. Don't ask others about it, it's a self-evaluation.
Don't ask others what they think about you, it's a SELF-evaluation.
It's going to ask you what sentence best describes you. You're not going to be like, "Hey Bob, Hey Joe, what do you think about me? Hey Sarah, do you think I'm this?"
As I mentioned before, this is a self-evaluation.
Be honest — it only helps you.
Be honest, go with the gut instinct. So when you read a set of answers for the question that you're being asked, don't over analyze it. What does your gut say? What's pulling towards you? You're going to feel torn a few questions, and it's supposed to be a bit difficult. It's not a breeze. It is asking some questions about yourself. You're going to feel like, well, “am I answering this with how I am at work or how I am at home?”
Well, I want you to answer the question on how you are most of the time. What's the 70 or 80% of the time how are you? Not the outlier situations because we all have situations where there's an exemption or we acted differently, we showed up differently.
Majority of the time, how do you show up and how are you like?
Give yourself 20 minutes.
Give yourselves about 20 minutes to complete this assessment. It's super easy, and you can revisit this blog when you have the answers to understand what the assessment says about you.
Final Thoughts
After reading my emotional intelligence article, A Manager's Guide to Improving Emotional Intelligence at Work and understanding yourself, you are now ready to understand and manage other personalities on your team.
From this article, you now have a firm understanding of each personality type you will find on your team.
More importantly, you now also realize the most effective way to communicate and manage each personality type.
You now understand that Ds like to communicate quickly and to the point and get things done, whereas Cs want to take things down a notch and have calm and thorough discussions as not to miss a single detail.
You also now finally understand that Quin is an I, which is why you can never get her to stop talking and that Greg is an S, which explains why you have to remind her of deadlines, sometimes.
Recognizing your team members' personalities helps you connect the dots regarding their different behavioural patterns.
Finally, everything begins to click, and you now understand what you need to do to support them better, which is especially relevant in our newly remote world.
Knowing how your team members cope with the new always-on culture is vital to helping support their well-being.
If you would like a comprehensive team assessment that includes a full DISC assessment for every team member, check out the Unicorn Labs team workshops page.
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