How these two popular personality tests will adjust your leadership communication style to help transform you into a communication pro.
Updated
September 20, 2024

Improve Your Communication Style With the DiSC and Enneagram Personality Tests

How these two popular personality tests will adjust your leadership communication style to help transform you into a communication pro.

Using these popular personality tests to adjust your leadership communication patterns.

👉 TL;DR

In this article:

You may have heard of the DISC and Enneagram personality tests, or maybe you've even taken one of them to determine your unique personality type. But have you ever considered how these two tests, when combined, can significantly improve your communication skills? In this hot take, we're going to explore how understanding your DISC and Enneagram personality types can elevate your communication game to the next level.

Looking for something other than the Enneagram? Here are the top 5 alternatives to Enneagram!

First, let's understand the basics. The DISC assessment is a personality profiling tool that identifies four primary personality traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. The Enneagram, on the other hand, is a model of human personality that describes nine interconnected personality types. While the DISC focuses on communication and behavior styles, the Enneagram delves deeper into core motivations and fears.

Wondering what your DiSC communication style is? Want to help your team learn about communicating with different DiSC styles? Check out our FREE downloadable DiSC resources!

Now, you may be wondering why we need two separate tests to improve our communication style. Well, the truth is that understanding both your DISC and Enneagram profiles allows you to create a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of your communication style.

Here's how you can use Enneagram and DiSC to improve your communication

1. Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses

By combining your DISC and Enneagram results, you'll get a clearer picture of your unique communication strengths and weaknesses. DISC helps you understand your natural behavioral tendencies, while the Enneagram provides insight into your deeper motivations and fears. This combination enables you to know when you're at your best and when you might be struggling, allowing you to make adjustments to optimize your communication style.

2. Speak the Language of Others

It's not enough to know your own personality type—you need to understand the personality types of those around you to communicate effectively. By learning about the DISC and Enneagram types of your peers, coworkers, friends, and family members, you'll be better equipped to speak their language and adapt your communication style to suit their preferences. This will lead to more effective conversations, stronger connections, and better collaboration.

{{inline-cta}}

3. Avoid Miscommunication

Miscommunication often stems from a lack of understanding of each other's communication styles. Combining DISC and Enneagram knowledge can help you avoid misunderstandings by giving you the tools to recognize and respect the diverse communication preferences of others. This will ultimately lead to fewer communication breakdowns and help you navigate challenging conversations with more ease.

4. Boost Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. By understanding your DISC and Enneagram personality types, you can enhance your emotional intelligence by being more self-aware, empathetic, and adaptable in your communication style. This will not only make you a more effective communicator but also a more emotionally intelligent individual, which is crucial for personal and professional success.

5. Foster a Culture of Understanding

When a team understands each other's DISC and Enneagram personality types, they can communicate more effectively, work together more harmoniously, and appreciate each other's unique strengths and weaknesses. This leads to increased collaboration, reduced conflict, and a more inclusive and understanding work environment.

So how can you begin to integrate DISC and Enneagram knowledge into your communication toolbox?

Here are a few tips:

  1. Take both the DISC and Enneagram assessments to determine your unique personality types.
  2. Study your results to better understand your communication style, strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and fears.
  3. Learn about the DISC and Enneagram personality types of those around you—your coworkers, friends, and family members.
  4. Practice adapting your communication style to suit the preferences of others
Looking to improve your team's communication? Check out 10 effective communication team building activities!

What if I want to get better at communicating with my team?

Both the DISC and the Enneagram tests are designed to assess an individual's personality, and they can be valuable tools for doing so. They can also shed light on interpersonal relationships, and the points of friction that may emerge in 1-on-1 interactions. However, despite how frequently both tests are administered in the workplace, neither of them is well-suited for understanding the nuances of group dynamics that sit at the heart of most modern, team-based work.

That’s why we built TeamDynamics. TeamDynamics helps you objectively assess, describe, and act on the unique ways in which your team interacts to accomplish its shared work. Put differently, TeamDynamics describes your team chemistry.

Equipped with your TeamDynamics, you can take action to improve your group dynamics and performance:

  • Build your team by defining team culture and values, setting actionable team norms, and conducting high-impact team offsites;
  • Manage your team better by coaching team members, turbocharging cross-team collaboration, and resolving team conflicts;
  • Recruit and hire more effectively by honing your recruiting pitch, refining your interview process, and accelerating new hire onboarding;

And much more!

Enjoyed this read?

Get updates whenever we post more content like this. Unsubscribe anytime.

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form. Please try again.

If that still doesn't work, please Contact Us directly.
Want to know your team's unique personality? Get a FREE analysis in just 2 minutes!

When we have team meetings…

Question 1 of 12
Want to know your team's health? Get your FREE TeamVitals analysis!

Our team understands what it's being asked to do.

Question 1 of 20

More like this:

How well do you know your team?

We've analyzed thousands of teams across industries, functions, and geographies. Here's a few things we've found.

Understanding how your team works is the key to getting work done (and having fun while doing it). You might be surprised what you learn.

Only 1/3 of managers know their teams.
Just 36% of managers correctly identify their team's type. If you don't know how your team works, how can you manage it?
9 in 10 people are out of alignment with their team.
91% of individuals are in tension with at least one of their team's core behaviors (two-thirds are in tension with 2 or more behaviors). Learn to thrive, even where you might naturally struggle!
3 out of 5 people want to work differently.
60% of individuals would prefer that their team execute towards its objectives differently. Maybe it's time to change how the team is working?
Read our 2024 State of the Team Report!
Learn how today's teams are communicating and collaborating to get work done in our inaugural report on the state of modern teamwork.

TeamDynamics is a tool for individuals and teams who believe that teamwork should be intentional and rewarding.

We spend just as much time today with our coworkers as we do with our loved ones. We have tools to manage our relationships with partners: love languages, compatibility tests, therapy, and more.

But when it comes to relationships with our professional teams, we're flying blind. It doesn't have to be that way.

TeamDynamics is a team building tool to help the modern team get more done and have more fun while doing it. Quantify your team's behaviors. Describe them with a shared language. Improve your team's performance with tailored recommendations.

Roger D.
Startup Founder

"Rapidly scaling, our team needed structure to get team members up to speed. TeamDynamics is a staple in our onboarding process. It helps new employees understand their team culture from day 1, getting them started on the right foot.”

David S.
Software Engineer

"When I switched teams, I felt like I lost my instincts for working with my colleagues: things that were easy to coordinate before seemed to take forever, and I couldn't get my points across. TeamDynamics helped me figure out what I needed to change to get my groove back."

Jamie F.
Product Marketing Manager

"I was asked to lead a workshop on working styles at our last offsite. I had no idea what to do. I came across TeamDynamics, and it saved me literally hours preparing for the session. Oh, and I got super positive feedback afterwards!"

Discover your team's personality.

Learn how your team works. Unlock your team's potential. Get your TeamDynamics today.

Get 10% off...Get 10% off...

Do you know your team's personality? 🤔

TeamDynamics describes how your team works together and how you fit in. We'll send you a sample so you can check it out for yourself!

Success! Check your email in a few minutes.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form. Please try again.

If that still doesn't work, please Contact Us directly.
Learn More