Professional Development Plan
Ashley Mercado-Perez
LDR/531
November 9, 2015
Michael Reynolds

Professional Development Plan

When working within a group it is very important to know the work styles of each individual. Knowing the strengths, weaknesses and needs of each individual with make for a more productive outcome of each task, and create synergy. In order to assess all of these factors, it is good to use a DISC Assessment.

DISC stands for Dominant, Interactive, Steady, and Cautious. These are the four main styles of leaders. Team B is made up of three of the four DISC styles; Interactive, Dominant, and Cautious.

According to the DISC Assessment, Interactive style people are friendly and thrive on admiration, acknowledgment and compliments. They are relationship oriented rather than task oriented and they are great influencers. They tend to use their people skills to build alliances to accomplish goals (Alessandra, P.7).

Strengths of the Interactive person are seen in their communication, participation and finding the good in things. Their weaknesses are follow through and lack of objectivity. Interactive people need recognition, acceptance, and they need to talk (Outside the Box, 2014).

Dominant Style people are driven by the need to control and the need to achieve. They like to take on challenges and are fast paced and goal oriented. A dominant Style person can work quickly and Impressively by themselves, and are annoyed with delay (Alessandra, P. 7).

Strengths of the dominant person are their ability to problem solve, makes decisions, and achieve goals, whereas, their weaknesses are finding faults, lacking caution, and the tendency to run over people who they see as being in their way. Dominant Style people need a sense of control, authority, and prestige (Outside the Box, 2014).

Cautious Style people are Systematic people who enjoy problem solving. They are detail oriented and enjoy perfecting processes. They work slow and double check their work. They see the serious and complex sides of situations. Cautious style people have very high expectations of themselves and can be over critical. Cautious Style people research and compare and calculate margins of error before taking action. They are irritated with surprises and glitches. Cautious style people are good listeners and ask a lot of questions. They “run the risk of missing the forest for the trees (Alessandra, p.8).

Strengths of the cautious style person are their high standards and ability to analyze and achieve accuracy. The weaknesses of the cautious style person are their rigidness, their ability to be over critical, and they tend to procrastinate. Cautious style people need precision, time to work, and facts (Outside the Box, 2014).

Interactive and dominant style people tend to be direct and cautious style people are more indirect. However, cautious and dominant people tend to be work oriented while Interactive people are more relationship driven (Alessandra, 2015). (Outside the Box, 2014)

In order to be a successful leader in this group, it is important to truly understand the needs of each individual and adjust tasks accordingly. Make each individual style person feel as though their need is being met in the work that they are doing and contributing to the group. Although being able to meet each styles needs seems easy enough, it has to be done within reason. For example, a Dominant style person needs to feel control, so communication to that person that they have control over their task and not all tasks of the group is very important.

When leading a group such as Team B, it is also important to know, as with any group, that in the end every person wants to do well and contribute to the success of the team, so making each person feel that their needs are being met and playing to their strengths, would be a good way to get the group to work as one and the weaknesses will come out fewer and far between.

Team B has a good mix of the four DISC styles, and they all have one common goal, which is to get the job done and get it done to the standards of each member, whether it is to feel control, recognition, or accuracy. Communication within this group will be key. Also, as a leader, remind each member that their strengths and weaknesses can be interchangeable. Just because an assessment says one thing, does not mean that at one point or another, a fellow member of your group may be feeling the same way.

References
Alessandra, T. (2015). The DISC Platinum Rule Behavioral Stle Assessment. Phoenix: University of Phoenix.
Outside the Box. (2014, July 7). Retrieved from Crossfitjulia.com: http://crossfitjulia.com/know-yourself-and-optimize-performance/