The Magic of the Dominant Personality

As you may know, I am a Certified Behavior Consultant, specializing in teaching the Ultimate Discovery System. This Ultimate Discovery System is based on the DISC Model of Human Behavior. On occasion, I believe that the High D (the Outgoing, Task Oriented Individual) gets a bad rap because they are Dominant, Direct, Demanding, Determined, Doers. They can be intense and focused individuals who love nothing more than to get results!


A few years back I saw a High D in action at the airport as my family and I were leaving for a vacation to Disneyland. I was quite impressed with the manner in which this High D used his God given personality and worked his ‘magic’ to help all of us in a very crowded airport that morning.

As you know, since September 11, 2001, flying has become very stressful and can be time consuming waiting in long lines for heightened security. This particular morning, we were flying out of the Humphrey Terminal in Minneapolis (the smaller of the two terminals) which is not particularly set up well to handle large crowds. Many charter and smaller regional airlines will fly out of the Humphrey Terminal and unfortunately, it seems that they all like to schedule their outgoing flights in the early morning.

We parked our car and started into the terminal, arriving about an hour before our departure, thinking we had plenty of time to maneuver through the various checkpoints and to catch our flight. When we entered the terminal, we were stopped by the throng of people trying to check-in and ultimately make it through the security check point. This was our first experience flying out of this terminal, and as luck would have it, we chose the wrong line. After about twenty minutes, we had made enough progress through the line to unfortunately discover that we were not in the line to check-in for our flight, but instead were in the long line to get through security! We scooted out of that line and dashed toward the shorter line to check-in for the flight. At this point, we had only 35 minutes left to catch our flight.

As we were racing back to the security line after checking in for our flight, we heard his voice. “May I have everyone’s attention.” he said authoritatively. Silence. Everyone stopped in their tracks and was quiet. “My lines are now operating at 30 seconds per person,” he told everyone. “If you set off the metal detector, we have to take you out of line and use the wand. That will slow the line down to 1 minute and 10 seconds per person. So take everything out of your pockets. Remove your shoes and take your laptop computers out of their cases. You can help me keep this line moving.”

“Does anyone have a 7:15 flight?” We raised our hands with several others in line. “I’m watching you. If you’re not to the front of the line in 10 minutes, I’ll walk you to the front of the line so you can make your flight.”

“Does anyone have a 7:00 flight?” Three hands went up. “Follow me.” He quickly verified their tickets and escorted them through the line. He confidently made eye contact with each individual. He was assertive and respectful. He was in complete control.

I was amazed in watching this professional handle this situation. To me, this was the epitome of a High D under control. He was:

• Dominant (took charge of the situation)
• Demanding (expected everyone to follow his orders)
• Determined (would get us to the gate on time)
• Doer (He made it happen)
• Dictatorial (He was in-charge)
• Diligent (efficient)
• Dynamic (full of energy for his job)

And thanks to all of his great qualities, we were able to lower our stress level and not worry about missing our flight. It was a great start to a magical vacation!