Exploring and understanding your personal style is the first step to success — in business and in life. Coaches at The Entrepreneur’s Source understand this, which is why we use the DiSC® behavioral assessment to help clients become adept at identifying their traits and tendencies and then using the results to help power entrepreneurial dreams.
Understanding Style Assessments
While philosophers have been toying with ideas about what makes people behave in different ways for thousands of years, objective style assessments gained popular attention in the early 1900s when the armed forces began looking at ways to improve personnel selection. Today, there are a variety of assessments available, some of which are more founded in scientific measurement than others. Assessments of note include the DiSC Style Assessment, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
Frequently, style assessments ask those taking the assessment to self-identify how they feel in or about certain situations. Based on the responses, the assessment taker is assigned a profile that outlines traits commonly held by people who have responded similarly. The profiles are non-judgmental and are intended to provide a framework for understanding what drives the assessment taker individually and in relation to others.
Self-Awareness and the DiSC Style Assessment
At The Entrepreneur’s Source, we often employ the DiSC style assessment during coaching. Upon taking the assessment clients learn where they fall on two scales: outgoing vs. reserved and task- vs. people-oriented. The combination of where they fall on these two scales maps the assessment-taker to one of the DiSC personality types: dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness.
Once the personality type has been identified, clients work with their coach to apply this insight to their alternative career search. From assessing franchises to evaluating financing options, the self-awareness gained from the DiSC assessment provides the client with an additional data point which can be used to guide their investigation and decision-making.
While the assessment sparks insight into strengths, weaknesses and motivations for the client, its real power comes from how the coach applies this knowledge.
The Power of Style Assessments in Coaching
Personality assessments are not a green light leading straight for success. It’s knowing how to adapt to a situation that is the power of understanding. This speaks to the practical use of style assessments as part of the coaching industry toolkit. While clients use the assessments as a mechanism for self-discovery, the results give the coach insight into how the person can be best supported during their exploration of alternate careers.
In fact, our coaches engage with three to four times more clients by simply leveraging the style assessment nuances identified through the results. This is because they adapt their coaching style to meet the personality needs of the client. This approach makes the relationship even more impactful for the client because they receive information and feedback in a way that they can best take advantage of it.
In any given group, there will be those who are quieter and those who are louder, those who are decisive and those who are uncertain, those who plan and those who implement. Every one of these characteristics has its place. Clients who work with a coach to investigate these characteristics and leverage them effectively have taken the first step towards becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Interested in learning more about your style assessment and potentially owning your very own franchise coaching business with The Entrepreneur’s Source? Learn more by visiting us here.
