I’ve managed teams for over 33 years. And I can tell you with complete certainty that most of the tension, miscommunication and conflict I’ve witnessed in workplaces comes down to one thing: people not understanding why others behave the way they do.
That team member who always needs three days to respond to a straightforward request. The colleague who talks over everyone in meetings and charges ahead before the plan is even agreed. The manager who seems unable to make a decision without first analysing every possible outcome. The employee who takes any kind of constructive feedback as a personal attack.
None of these people are being deliberately awkward. They’re just wired differently to you. And once you understand that, really understand it – the way you manage, communicate and have difficult conversations changes completely.
That’s exactly where the DiSC assessment comes in. It’s one of the tools I use with every manager and leader I work with, and it consistently produces those “oh, that explains everything” moments that shift how people lead their teams for good.
What Actually Is DiSC?
DiSC is a personal development tool that measures your behavioural preferences and tendencies. It describes four core styles:
- Dominance (D),
- Influence (i),
- Steadiness (S),
- Conscientiousness (C)
and everyone sits somewhere within this model. Not in a box, but on a spectrum, because human behaviour is far more nuanced than four neat categories.
What I love about DiSC, and what makes it different from many other personality tools, is that it doesn’t put a value judgement on any style. There’s no best or worst. No style that makes someone a better manager or a more valuable employee.
It simply helps you and the people you work with – understand how you’re likely to show up, what motivates you, what causes you stress, and how you prefer to communicate.
This is backed by serious research. The Everything DiSC assessment has been under development for over 40 years, and its scientific foundation is rigorous.
The tool has a 97% satisfaction rating among organisations and a 90% accuracy rating from learners worldwide. More than 8 million people across 130,000 organisations in over 70 countries have used it. So when I introduce this with clients, I’m not handing them a personality quiz from a magazine, this is a validated, research-backed assessment that genuinely reveals how people tick.
The Four DiSC Styles And Why They Matter for Your Team
Let me walk you through each style and, more importantly, what it means in practice when you’re managing people day to day.
D — Dominance
People with a strong D style are direct, results-focused and decisive. They’re the ones who want to get to the point, push for action and don’t particularly enjoy long drawn-out discussions. They thrive on challenge and can come across as impatient or blunt to those who prefer a more measured approach.
If you’re managing someone with a high D style, don’t beat around the bush. Be direct, be clear about what you need, and give them autonomy where you can. If you avoid a difficult conversation with them because you’re worried about their reaction, they’ll likely respect you less for it, not more.
i — Influence
The i style is outgoing, enthusiastic and people-focused. These individuals light up a room, they’re natural collaborators and they genuinely care about the relationships they build at work. They can sometimes be seen as lacking follow-through, or as too chatty and off-task, by those with more task-focused styles.
When you need to have a difficult conversation with someone who has a high i style, the relationship matters enormously to them. Start by acknowledging the relationship and keeping the tone collaborative. They need to feel that you still value them as a person, not just as a member of your team.
S — Steadiness
S style individuals are the calm, steady backbone of most teams. They’re considerate, patient, reliable and deeply loyal. They dislike conflict, sudden change and environments where things feel unpredictable. They often say yes when they mean no, and they’ll absorb a lot of pressure quietly before it shows on the surface.
This is the style that managers most often misread. Because they’re not loud about their struggles, you can mistake their silence for contentment. It rarely is. If you need to address a performance issue or a behaviour concern with someone who has a high S style, create a safe, private space, be gentle in your approach and give them time to process. Springing something on them without warning will shut them down immediately.
C — Conscientiousness
C style individuals are analytical, accurate and quality-driven. They need information, they need time to think, and they do not like being rushed into decisions or conversations they haven’t had time to prepare for. They can come across as cold or overly critical, when in reality they’re simply being thorough.
When you’re managing someone with a high C style, give them data and evidence. If you’re having a performance conversation, come with specifics — vague feedback will frustrate them and they’ll push back because they want to understand exactly what you’re referring to. They appreciate accuracy above almost everything else.
No One Is Just One DiSC Style
This is important. DiSC isn’t about putting people in boxes. Everyone has elements of all four styles – it’s just that one, two or sometimes three tend to be dominant. Think of it less like four distinct categories and more like a colour spectrum. The styles blend into each other, and that blending creates unique combinations that shape how someone actually shows up at work.
The assessment itself is sophisticated enough to capture this nuance. It uses adaptive testing and detailed algorithms to produce a personalised profile that reflects the genuine complexity of how you behave, not just a simplified label.
I want to be honest with you here: knowing someone’s DiSC style doesn’t mean you can predict exactly how they’ll react in every situation. What it does is give you a framework for understanding their most natural tendencies, which means you stop taking things personally and start making smarter decisions about how you communicate with them.
Why DiSC Changes Everything About Difficult Conversations
The managers I work with who struggle most with difficult conversations aren’t struggling because they’re bad communicators. They’re struggling because they’re communicating in their own style rather than adapting to the style of the person in front of them.
If you have a high D style and you’re managing someone with a high S style, your naturally direct approach will almost certainly cause them to shut down in a challenging conversation. You’re not being cruel; it’s just that what feels like confident, clear communication to you lands as overwhelming and threatening to them.
Equally, if you’re naturally more S-style yourself – warm, people-focused, conflict-averse, and you’re managing someone with a high D style who keeps pushing back on you, you might be reading their directness as aggression when it’s simply how they process and engage. And you might be avoiding the conversation altogether because it feels too scary, when actually that employee is waiting for you to step up and have it with them.
This mismatch is at the root of so many of the situations I see.
The manager who has been avoiding a performance conversation for months.
The leader who can’t understand why their team seems demotivated despite their best efforts.
The employer who feels like they’re constantly treading on eggshells with a particular team member. DiSC doesn’t solve all of those problems on its own, but it gives you the insight to start solving them far more effectively.
What Happens When You Use DiSC With Your Whole Team
The real power of DiSC shows up when you use it across your team rather than just individually. When everyone has their own profile and understands their colleagues’ styles, something shifts in the culture. People stop assuming the worst about each other’s behaviour and start developing a shared language for understanding their differences.
I’ve seen this happen in real teams, and it’s genuinely remarkable. The person who was labelled difficult suddenly has context. The team that couldn’t agree on anything starts to understand why their meetings were so fractious. The manager who thought they had a performance problem realises they actually have a communication mismatch.
It also helps with the bickering and conflict that so many managers tell me is exhausting them.
When two people with very different styles clash, it’s usually because they can’t understand why the other person operates the way they do. A D style and an S style in conflict, for example, can look like one person being a bulldozer and the other being passive.
DiSC gives both of them a way to understand the dynamic without it being personal.
The Stretch: Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
One of the concepts I find most useful from DiSC theory is the idea of stretch. Your natural style is your home base – the place you default to under pressure. But good management requires all of us to regularly stretch beyond our comfort zones.
The further you need to stretch from your natural style, the more energy it takes. This is why certain types of conversations or situations drain you in a way they might not drain a colleague. It’s not a weakness. It’s just the cost of stretching. And the good news is that stretching becomes easier and less exhausting with practice and with the right tools.
For managers who identify as more S or C style, stretching towards more direct, decisive communication, especially in difficult conversations, is one of the most transformative things I help with.
And DiSC is always part of how we start that work, because until you understand your own style and its impact on others, it’s very hard to know what specifically needs to change.
How I Use DiSC in My Work With Managers
DiSC is one of the three core elements in my Catalyst Conversations coaching programme. I use it at the start of our work together for a reason – it gives us a foundation.
Before we work on how to have a difficult conversation, we need to understand what’s happening underneath the avoidance. And often, the avoidance is rooted in a person’s natural style and what feels comfortable to them.
Pair that with my COMPASS Conversation Model, which gives you a practical step-by-step structure for working through any challenging workplace discussion and suddenly managers have both the self-awareness and the skills to do things differently.
The DiSC assessment isn’t a magic fix. Nothing is. But it is one of the most consistently useful tools I’ve found over the past three decades of working with people.
It builds empathy where there was frustration. It replaces assumption with understanding. And it gives managers permission to adapt their communication, rather than expecting everyone on their team to simply fall in line with how they naturally operate.
The Bottom Line
If you’re a manager who’s exhausted by conflict, confused by a team member’s behaviour, or avoiding a conversation that you know needs to happen, understanding DiSC styles, including your own, is one of the most practical places to start.
Managing people well isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about being curious enough to understand why they do what they do — and smart enough to adapt your approach accordingly.
If you’d like to explore what a DiSC assessment could reveal about you and your team, or if you’d like to learn more about how I help managers tackle the conversations they’ve been putting off, I’d love to hear from you. You can find out more at thepeoplementor.co.uk or drop me a message directly.