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Work & Career

DISC Profile

Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness

  • About 6 minutes
  • 38 questions
  • 4 dimensions
  • 4 illustrated results
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Illustration: DISC Profile

This profile looks at how you tend to behave at work: how fast and forcefully you move, and whether your attention goes first to tasks or to people. It sorts those habits into four styles, Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness, and shows your blend.

Answer for how you usually are at work, or in study and projects if you are not working, rather than how you think you should be. Some questions ask you to choose between options; pick the one closest to you, even when more than one fits. No style is better than another, and every team needs all four.

What it measures

Dominance

Directness, decisiveness and drive for results: how forcefully you shape your environment and overcome obstacles.

Low: You prefer to cooperate, weigh options and let others set the direction.

High: You decide quickly, take charge and push hard for results.

Influence

Enthusiasm, sociability and persuasion: how much you work through people, energy and ideas.

Low: You are reserved and matter-of-fact, keeping enthusiasm low-key.

High: You are outgoing, expressive and energised by people and new ideas.

Steadiness

Patience, consistency and support: how much you value stability, cooperation and a steady pace.

Low: You enjoy change, variety and a quick tempo.

High: You prefer stability and harmony, and you are a patient, loyal team player.

Conscientiousness

Accuracy, analysis and standards: how much you value quality, logic and doing things correctly.

Low: You go with your gut and focus on the big picture rather than the fine print.

High: You check facts, follow standards and want things done exactly right.

Possible results

About this test

DISC goes back to the psychologist William Moulton Marston, whose 1928 book Emotions of Normal People described four ways people respond to their surroundings, depending on whether they see the environment as favourable or hostile and themselves as more or less powerful than it: Dominance, Inducement (now Influence), Submission (now Steadiness) and Compliance (now Conscientiousness). Marston never built a test himself. The industrial psychologist Walter Clarke created the first questionnaire based on his ideas in the 1950s, and John Geier and others later developed the profiles that spread through workplaces worldwide. Many commercial versions exist today; this is an independent test with original items, not affiliated with any of them (DiSC is a registered trademark of John Wiley & Sons).

The model sits on two axes: pace (fast and outspoken versus moderate and reflective) and focus (tasks and scepticism versus people and acceptance). D is fast and task-focused, I fast and people-focused, S moderate and people-focused, C moderate and task-focused. This test scores all four styles with statements and forced choices. Your primary style is the highest; a second style within 15 points appears in lower case in your code (for example Di), and two styles within 5 points are both written in capitals (for example SC).

Caveats: DISC describes observable behaviour at work, not your whole personality, and its styles overlap with the Big Five traits of extraversion and agreeableness. Most published research comes from test publishers, so independent evidence is thin. It is useful as a shared language for communication, but it should never be used for hiring or selection. Scores are relative to the range of possible answers, not to population norms.

References

For self-reflection and curiosity, not diagnosis. Scores describe how you answered, relative to the possible range; they are not compared with population norms.

All questions, type names and descriptions were written for this suite. Where a test is inspired by a branded instrument (the MBTI®, the five love languages®, DISC assessments, the Political Compass), it is an independent test of the same idea and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the owners of those names.

DISC Profile

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About 6 minutes · 38 questions

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