At DISCsimple, we love using the DISC model. Made up of four behavioural styles: D – Dominant or Doer; I – Influencer, S – Steadiness or Supporter, and C – Conscientiousness or Considerer. It helps us to better understand our priorities and who we are. But what happens when we know that we can be better? How can knowing our DISC style help us to grow when our behavioural style is fixed?  

Emotional Intelligence (EI), is the capacity to understand, use, and control your emotions to help create stronger relationships through improving communication, overcoming challenges, and building empathy.  

We already know that each DISC style has its own priorities that it prefers, but each style also has Emotional Intelligence strengths or mindsets that they naturally favour. Attitudes or outlooks determine how you interpret and respond to any given situation. In the Agile EQ™ framework there are eight mindsets in total, 3 of those relate to your DISC behavioural style. The remaining 5 tend to lie outside of a person’s natural comfort zone but not beyond reach. 

D – Resolute, Self-assured, Dynamic. 

I – Dynamic, Outgoing, Empathising. 

S – Empathising, Receptive, Composed. 

C – Composed, Objective, Resolute. 

A D, Dominant or Doer style person will find that the Resolute, Self-Assured and Dynamic mindsets take virtually no effort to operate in, whereas they may find that being Empathising, Receptive and Composed, while not impossible, takes a huge amount of effort. You will likely find that an S or Supporter style will have the exact opposite problem – being open and receptive to others comes almost as naturally as breathing but being self-assured is often a big stretch for the S style and uses a lot of energy.  

Just as there is no best behavioural style, there are no better or worse mindsets to have. Every day we encounter situations that call for a very different response than what we might find easy. Things in life are ever-changing. We don’t stay in the same job, house, relationship or even location, our situations are constantly shifting. By knowing where our emotional intelligence strengths lie, we can practise stretching into all the mindsets and prepare ourselves to adapt. 

We know that our DISC style is usually fixed from the age of 7 but when it comes to mindsets, we have the capability to stretch into ones outside of our natural comfort zone – We just have to want to. No matter what your DISC style is you can build your emotional intelligence by learning and taking on new challenges. In the workplace a higher EI level improves understanding, connection, and empowers you to build better working relationships with your team, leading to a higher chance of success. Being self-aware socially means that you are not only able to regulate and tune into your own emotions, but you have the ability to recognise the emotions of others and are able to respond in a much more appropriate way. 

We are a blend of all the DISC styles which means that there is not a mindset that we cannot stretch into. Some are just more challenging than others. If you have a Workplace profile, you can unlock your Agile EQ™ profile and learn your natural mindsets and what you can do to be able to stretch outside of your comfort zone. 

As we say at DISCsimple: Rejoice in the differences!

If you are a people development expert, independent consultant or coach and would like to benefit from a like-minded and supportive network of people get in touch at discover@discsimple.com to find out how you can become a partner.

To learn more about the DISC tool and how you can learn to identify different DISC styles. Come along to one of our free lunchtime sessions. They are full of powerful insight into the world of Everything DiSC® (part of the Wiley group) and in just 30 minutes you will learn something! We run a learning session every Monday and a Pro session for professionals already working with DISC every other Thursday.