The DISC personality assessment has four leadership styles: Dominant, Influencing or Interpersonal, Steady, and Conscientious. Conscientious, or high-C, employees do well in careers that involve programming, research, or high volumes of data. As leaders, they are tactful and humble but highly value accuracy.
Your employee might have a micromanagement leadership style if they possess the following traits:
The following needs, emotions, and fears often drive high-C employees. This will impact their working and management styles.
| Needs | Rules to follow, data to analyze |
| Emotions | Fear, concern |
| Fears | Being criticized, loss of accuracy or quality |
Contrary to what you might think, C personality types don’t micromanage because they’re unreasonable. Unfortunately, often they don’t know how to stop micromanaging. Here are a few ways you can help an employee navigate their micromanagement leadership style.
| If your employee is… | You can… |
| Concerned with aggressive approaches | Approach them in an indirect, non-threatening way |
| A logical thinker | Show your reasoning and how you arrive at your conclusions |
| Looking for data | Give them facts and figures in writing |
| Trying to understand the process | Provide explanations and rationale |
| Overly cautious | Allow them to think, inquire, and double-check before they make decisions |
| Struggling to delegate | When delegating, let them check procedures before they make decisions |
| A perfectionist | Compliment them when appropriate |
| Gravitating toward quality control | Let them assess and be involved in the process when possible |
| Avoiding conflict | Tactfully ask for clarification and assistance you may need |
| Needing to be right | Allow them time to find the best or “correct” answer within available limits. |
| Contemplative | Tell them “why” and “how.” |
You can help an employee with C personality traits by giving them realistic deadlines and parameters for their work and encouraging them to do the same for others on their team. Model a non-micromanagement leadership style by allowing them to work without frequently checking in.
Help them put their tasks and interactions with others into perspective so they aren’t tempted to imbue them with more importance than necessary. Of course, they should have high expectations for high-priority work, but they risk burning out and pressuring their teammates if they maintain those standards for everything.
Want to learn more about managing the different personality types? As a business coach, I have administered and debriefed over 3,000 pre-hire behavioral profiles for my clients. Unfortunately, making a wrong hiring decision is incredibly expensive and a massive disruption to your business. Click here if you would like to learn more about a fast and affordable way to assess and understand candidate talents and opportunities.
Coach Dave
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