At the start of August, I am attending a leadership retreat. In preparation for the session, the organization that it is through asked participants to complete a DiSC assessment. It is a self-assessment tool used to fit a person into one of four dimensions of human behavior: dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. Your responses also create a pattern that places people into more specific personality types. The results generally apply to professional settings, but you can interpret them to represent your personal life.

This week, I received my results from the assessment. My highest dimension is dominance, and my result pattern is closely related to a result-oriented profile. I am not surprised by these results because I am highly independent, frustrated with the status quo, opinionated, and change-oriented. Many of the descriptions of how I work closely align with myself. It was reassuring to know that I have the personality type to take charge, take on challenges, and work well under pressure. These are all aspects that I pride myself on.

Although I do enjoy being a dominant person, there are many mental obstacles that you need to overcome to work well with other people. I have always enjoyed independent work, but as a city and regional planning major, most of my assignments involve group-based projects. While I usually take on a leadership role, as noted in my assessment results, d-dimension personalities can be arrogant, competitive, and uncaring due to being honest, blunt, and flaw-finding. Those are some of my most significant weaknesses. I enjoy group work if my team has a strong drive and produces quality work. This past semester, I did find myself in the middle of conflicts on two separate group projects due to people not wanting to do their part. I cannot sit back and will call them out because I thrive on validated conflict. It is not great, but I do love to prove a point.

The assessment also reassured me of many weaknesses I identified during this past academic year. As stated, I am not afraid of conflict; however, too much can lead to negative group dynamics. I am learning to pick my battles and loosen my grip on control. It is difficult for me to take a step back because if something is going to have my name on it, I want it to (at least) meet my quality standards. We all have different standards, which is something that I have to accept.

Further, I mentioned that the assessment stated I can come off as arrogant or condescending. I already know that my delivery and wording are areas of problem for me. I can be blunt because that is how I talk to myself, but not everyone is ready for unsweetened truth. I need to keep patience and delivery at the forefront of my mind.

I encourage everyone to take a DiSC assessment because the results are quite enlightening and a great way to identify areas that need development. I want to see how we will utilize this assessment during the leadership retreat.