Extended DISC Blog

Are you maximizing the benefits of the Leadership Assessment to create more successful DISC leadership sessions?

Setting up a successful session

Before you even begin your session, there are steps you can take to ensure success. 

• Know your audience. Your participant's DISC results enable you to better understand your audience. Are they going to be more reserved and quieter? Are they going to need more opportunities to speak? Remember to practice what you teach. Identify your audience and adjust your session and style to best fit theirs'. 
• Get permission to share individual results BEFORE the session if you need to. If any participant says, "I'm not comfortable" it's okay. You can always present an anonymous team DISC map if you need to.
• The Leadership Report helps you automatically create a presentation focused on behaviors. Remind your people it's a behavioral assessment. It focuses on behaviors because you can make positive adjustments to that aspect of who you are.
• Create time and space for discussions - don't pack sessions; allow participants to help set the pace and have time to process and discuss. Set the stage that DISC is a bridge to communication. 
• Use real life examples, as they happen in class, for teachable moments. 

Your DISC Leadership Template

The 4 Steps to Effective Leadership is a concise training template to deliver a practical and powerful DISC session. The Extended DISC^® Leadership report and support materials are built on this brief and highly effective training template. The 4 Steps consist of:

1. Understanding the four main DISC styles
2. Identifying your DISC leadership style and how your team members perceive you.
3. Identifying your employees' styles to better understand them.
4. Adjusting your style to more lead effectively.

Don't overlook this template if you want to deliver a comprehensive DISC session and more importantly, add a real world application piece to ensure your participants put learning into practice.

Using the Leadership Report

The easiest thing you can do to facilitate a DISC leadership session is use the Leadership Report as your guide. Whether you're aware of it or not, the report delivers the results using the 4 Steps to Effective Leadership.

The first part of the report highlights the 4 DISC styles. Next, Step 2 in the report describes the person's natural style and how they tend to show up. Step 3 has a clear section on how to identify other's styles. Last, but not least, Step 4 has the tips section on how to develop and challenge your style.

The report itself is dynamic, meaning as a leader you can go back and revisit it if your role changes, your team members and managers change, etc. I highly encourage participants to take notes and mark it up. What statements resonate the most? Place questions marks next to statements they're unsure of and highlight the statements that describe them well.

Consider exercises that promote using the report. The more comfortable and familiar participants are in using the report during the session, the more likely they will continue to use and apply the information later on. It will help establish the report as a guide and a starting point.

Activities to support application

Now that you have the templates to build your session, let's discuss some activities to reinforce DISC leadership learning.

Strengths and Challenges Activity

• Ask your leaders to self-identify their behavioral strengths and challenges as a leader.
• Expert tip: identify strengths and challenges early in the DISC session and use the information to compare to their DISC results. What matches? Are there gaps?
• There may be times where there are gaps between their own perception of self vs. how they are showing up to their employees. These blind spots often give you the best opportunities for development.

'Identifying my team' instructions:

• Ask your participants to plot what they think are the main styles of their employees. You can use Extended DISC flipchart paper or a blank diamond handout. Many leaders will be interested in having their employees take the DISC assessment, if they haven't already.
• If their employees have already taken the assessment, you may consider printing an anonymous team map and ask your leaders to identify their team members. 
• The leader can take the resulting team map back to their office to become a consistent and visual reminder that their team members have different styles and preferences. It also sends a powerful message to their team, by seeing the map in a prominent place, that they value DISC and improving interactions so their employees should as well.

Using the Leadership Report Personal Action Plan

• The Personal Action Plan creates a concise, simple, and specific action plan to improve performance. The best part is it's already built into the Leadership Report.
• It helps create a "Top 3" list; focusing on things your leaders can "start, stop, and continue" doing based on their understanding of their report results.
• Ask your participants to use their Leadership report to help create the list.

Delivering the end goal message

In addition to using the Leadership Report, there are many other resources available. If you are an active subscriber of Extended DISC^® Assessments, you have access to our Client Resource Site (authorization is required), containing PowerPoint presentations, activities, sample reports and more.

We also have a Leadership Presentation which includes a facilitation outline and an accompanying PowerPoint.

Webinars and blogs are a great way to keep current on all things DISC. Check them out on our website or our YouTube Channel.

So, what are you waiting for? Use the Extended DISC^® Leadership Report in your next leadership training!