- What are the four DISC personality types?
- How the Dominant personality type views time
- How the Inspiring personality type views time
- How the Supportive personality type views time
- How the Conscientious personality type views time
What are the four DISC personality types?
Here’s a quick description of the strengths and weaknesses of each DISC personality type:
Dominant
The dominant person is direct, forceful, strong-willed and proactive.
Dominant people like to do tasks quickly, and enjoy taking action, especially when the action is bold and decisive. They like to be in charge and as a result may be poor subordinate workers. They enjoy working towards and achieving goals. They are focused primarily on the future. They are naturally task-oriented and tend to think only later about how the people involved might be affected.
Their weaknesses include being insensitive, being too pushy or forceful, and being too blunt for the comfort of other personality types. Often they think they’re right, and it’s hard to convince them to change once their minds are made up.
Inspiring
Inspiring: The inspiring person is enthusiastic, outgoing, ideas-oriented, and fun.
The inspiring person is talkative; they enjoy expressing themselves and persuading others. Inspiring people are natural-born salespeople. They like to perform and are drawn to the spotlight. They love brainstorming and collaborating with other enthusiastic people who display vision and share their passion for ideas.
Possible weaknesses include talking too much, and struggling to compete projects once their initial enthusiasm has worn off. They find it difficult to maintain focus on one idea for a long time.
Details are challenging; they know that details are important, but struggle to get them exactly right.
Supportive
Supportive: The supportive person is patient, diplomatic, flexible, and empathetic.
The supportive person is energized by feeling that they’ve helped someone. They love to contribute behind the scenes, away from the spotlight. They need to know that they’re more than just a number, and so they thrive in collaborative environments. They are energized by doing practical jobs that they feel confident in completing. To a supportive person, trust is everything, and when they feel trusted and appreciated, they perform at peak levels.
Their weaknesses may include avoiding conflict, and not speaking their minds (especially about controversial topics. Since they don’t enjoy engaging in conflict, they may struggle with feelings of bitterness, or hold grudges over real or perceived sleights. When they feel badly treated, they may become stubborn and display a ‘quiet will of iron.’
Conscientious
Conscientious: The conscientious person is detailed, accurate, thorough, and precise
The conscientious person is energized by doing a task thoroughly and well. They desire the time and quiet necessary to focus on doing a perfect job. Detail and data appeals to them, because data is predictable and consistent; people are not! Conscientious people naturally create structure, order and process, and are very interested in building a detailed plan that will produce quality results.
Their weaknesses may include being too picky. They spot what’s wrong before they see what’s right in most situations. They may try to exert inappropriate control over others, especially when they’re under stress. Since they strive for quality results, they may become bogged down in detail. Striving for perfection in every aspect of a task matters a lot to them, whether the task matters or not.
How the Dominant personality type views time
The Dominant thinks primarily of the present and the future, and doesn’t think at all about the past.
To the Dominant person, the past is over and can’t be changed. They’re very goal oriented and don’t care about the past, except as an indicator of what to do in the present and the future.
If a Dominant person gets mad at you, there’s no point worrying about it; they forgot about it a few minutes after it happened!
How the Inspiring personality type views time
The Inspiring person thinks primarily of the future. They think about the present only if it’s exciting. They don’t think about the past at all.
The past doesn’t occur to the Inspiring person. It’s over, and they likely don’t even remember much what happened yesterday. For the Inspiring person, life is all about an exciting tomorrow.
An Inspiring person is bored by the present if it isn’t engaging and exciting. That’s why they need an environment that includes variety and excitement.
How the Supportive personality type views time
The Supportive person thinks primarily of the present and the past. They don’t like thinking about the future, even if they present isn’t great. They would continue doing what they’re doing today and let the future take care of itself.
The Supportive person does think a lot about the past, however. In particular, they think about conflicts and relational difficulties that have already happened.
They will lay in bed at night playing and replaying these incidents, wondering what they might have done wrong and how they could have avoided the situation in the first place.
How the Conscientious personality type views time
The Conscientious person is thinks primarily about the present and the past. They worry about the future.
The reason for this is that the past is certain; what happened, happened. It can be quantified measured and recorded.
They like the present because they can use it to plan and de-risk the future. If their plans are laid well enough, they can avoid having a negative outcome.
The future, however, cannot be controlled. Anything can happen, and the Conscientious person doesn’t like dealing with the unknown. They like a clear plan with predictable outcomes.
In summary
All four DISC personality types view time differently. Their view of time dramatically affects how they interact with the world around them.
- Dominant people: Focus on the present and the future; they don’t care much about the past
- Inspiring people: Focus on the future and the present (if it’s exciting). They aren’t interested in the past
- Supportive people: Focus on the present and the past. They don’t like thinking about the future
- Conscientious people: Focus on the present and the past. They worry about the future
Additional resources
Thanks for reading this article on How each DISC personality type relates to time. Below are additional resources from Professional Leadership Institute, the global provider of online human resources and leadership tools:
- Write your free DISC assessment here: https://www.professionalleadershipinstitute.com/disc-personalities-assessment/
- What is the DISC test? https://www.professionalleadershipinstitute.com/resources/disc-test/
