Our personality impacts everything we do; how we respond to pressure, how we network, socialize, and react when there is an emergency. Our personality is something that we cannot escape. When I reflect upon those who are successful, I see bold individuals who are assured within. They know what they are good at and they maximize upon those strengths. Successful people, regardless of their industry, are always boldly self-aware.

With the beginning of 2019, the New Year provides us with an opportunity to build upon the experiences and lessons learned from the previous year. I don’t believe we ever truly start over, instead; we build upon our achievements and/or the lessons learned from past failures and shortfalls. In retrospect, one of the things I’ve gleaned over the past couple of years is that our personality identifies our strengths and weaknesses. It directly affects our ability to achieve our goals and meet our objectives.

As a DISC Behavioral Consultant, I’ve learned to identify personality types through consultation, and help others develop goals that coincide with their character. In doing so, individuals maximize their opportunity for achievement.

These 3 actions will help individuals streamline their personal goals:

• Tailor your conversation based on personality traits. This gives you the ability to make adjustments within the discussion to lead the path forward.
• Generate goals that motivate the person to put in the necessary effort to achieve each one.
• Identify areas to stretch the individual and achieve things that will take a focused effort.

By successfully implementing these 3 things into the development of goals, I believe we give people the ability to be successful and achieve more than they might expect.

So how do we set goals based upon a person’s personality? To answer this question, I will identify methods that reflect the DISC personality styles in general. I’ll use the behavioral traits and the typical strengths and weaknesses of each personality style. Let’s take a look at how to set goals for each personality style.

People with dominant personalities are direct, decisive, problem solvers, risk takers, and self-starters. People with a strong dominant personality are hard-charging, get-it-done kind of people! I identify with this particular personality type. I tend to set very ambitious, lofty goals. However, if I don’t see immediate results, I’ll quickly lose motivation.

People you identify as having a dominant personality need to have goals that meet the following parameters;

• Identify a few more than required. If you want 3-5 goals, a dominant person will set 7-10.
• Make the majority of the goals short-term. This serves as motivation to accomplish many things.
• Set a couple of long-term goals with the expectation to endure until the end.
• Each goal must be clearly identified and the timeline for completion well established.
• Establish regular one-on-one follow-ups and progress meetings.

When developing goals for a dominant personality consider the following:

POSITIVE CHARACTERISTICS

1. Autocratic in teams and will rise to the top in a crisis
2. Good at providing direction and leadership
3. High assertiveness
4. They have a clear idea of their ambitions and goals and will push hard for accomplishment
5. Function well with heavy workloads
6. Very competitive attitude
7. Welcomes new challenges
8. Tend to follow their own ideas

AREAS FOR GROWTH

1. LEARN TO LISTEN MORE AND SPEAK LESS
2. Gather consensus on decisions
3. Don’t act alone
4. Learn to answer the question “why” when asked about decisions and proposals
5. Work on body language and tone of voice when dealing with frustration
6. Focus on developing sincere personal relationships
7. Can intimidate others

People with an influential personality are enthusiastic, trusting, optimistic, persuasive, talkative, impulsive and emotional. They are just pure FUN! They are the life of the party and are typically the ones we talk about after the Christmas party. They love to set goals and dream about the things they want to achieve.

These fun-loving social characters need to have goals that meet the following parameters:

• Harness their enthusiasm when identifying goals
• Identify goals that will move the company forward and acknowledge their value
• Clearly define the steps to achieve each goal and have them focus on each stage before moving onto the next
• Set smaller goals
• Identify the timeline for each goal
• Prioritize each goal for the company and the individual
• Establish regular one-on-one meetings to verify progress and determine the next steps for successful performance

When developing goals for those with an influencing personality style, consider;

POSITIVE CHARACTERISTICS

1. Great communicators who are both influential and inspirational
2. Have the ability to motivate others
3. Great advocates of change and deal well with change themselves
4. People are drawn to them, thus creating a great opportunity to lead others
5. Positive attitude
6. Great at brainstorming and visionary projects

AREAS FOR GROWTH

1. Impulsive in decision making
2. Can be slow to action (a lot of talk, but little action)
3. Need to exercise control over actions, words, and emotions
4. Need to talk less and listen more
5. Tends to over-promise

The steady personalities are good listeners, team players, possessive, steady and predictable. They are understanding and friendly relationship-based people. Goal setting usually means change is coming, which immediately causes tension for a steady personality—because they don’t like change.

If you see yourself as a person with a steady personality or will be working to set goals with someone described above, consider:

• Goals that establish step by step directions with a clearly defined plan for achievement
• Establish the benefit for achieving each goal
• Needs more time to develop their goals
• Set timelines for each goal and hold them to it

Consider the following when developing goals for the person with a steady personality:

POSITIVE CHARACTERISTICS

1. Supportive and natural relationship builders
2. Grounded in reality and common sense
3. Talented multi-taskers
4. Patient
5. Loyal
6. Even-tempered
7. Peacemakers in groups and teams

AREAS FOR GROWTH

1. Struggles with change and making adjustments
2. Can be overly agreeable
3. Tends to put other’s needs before theirs
4. Need to be more direct in their interactions with others
5. Their pace tends to be slow, thus causing them to miss deadlines

A person with a compliant personality is accurate, analytical, conscientious, careful, precise, meticulous and systematic.  Those with a complaint personality are very focused on procedure and making sure things are done the right way. They don’t have a problem with setting goals, but they do need help prioritizing. A compliant personality wants to accomplish EVERYTHING!

To set effective goals, a person with a compliant personality must consider:

• Start the process early!
• Focusing on goals that are important to YOU!
• Ensure each goal is practical and detailed
• Create clear, identifiable goals that establish their role within the group, department, and organization
• Establish data-driven goals that focus on details others may not see
• Stretch the person by developing one or two visionary goals

As you consider developing goals for the compliant personality, consider the following:

POSITIVE CHARACTERISTICS

1. Instinctive organizers
2. Excellent at creating and maintaining systems and processes
3. Consistent in their approach
4. Will see projects through until completion
5. Strive for a diplomatic approach
6. Strive for a group and team consensus

AREAS FOR GROWTH

1. Tend to be critical of others
2. Consider other’s ideas and methods
3. Need to speed up to help the team or group accomplish their goals
4. Work on focusing more on building strong relationships
5. Make faster-informed decisions
6. Take more risks

Final Thoughts

Each one of us has a unique personality style. Sure, we can put people in “personality” buckets, but that only helps to identify our approach. As leaders, we must know our coworkers and ourselves well enough to understand what motivates them and how they react to different situations. Knowing a person’s personality style can proactively help you and your employees make adjustments. Consider the information presented and strive to achieve your personal best and the best from your employees in 2019!

Denis is an Executive Director at the John Maxwell Group, is a certified leadership coach, trainer, keynote speaker, and DISC Behavior, Consultant. He is a passionate person of influence committed to teaching and communicating practical and relevant influencing techniques.  His unique passionate and emotionally driven style resonates with many, creating a desire to become an effective leader.  

You can contact Denis at dbaker@leaderinfluence.net for information on coaching, training, DISC Behavioral consulting or to be an inspirational speaker at your next event.