What DISC Type are Most CEOs?

Adam Stamm

Managing Partner: Online DISC Profile

Adam was first certified in DISC in 2018. Over the years, he has developed new DISC Products and other personality-based tools. He is a Managing Partner at Online DISC Profile, Chapter President of the Association of Talent Development Greater Philadelphia Chapter, and lives in Philadelphia, PA (USA).

Overwhelmingly, CEOs will fall into either the D or DI personality types based on the DISC Personality model.

We reviewed competencies for this type of position (based on job board postings) and compared them with statistical research, indicating that the D and DI personality types most closely align with these competencies. Next, we examined the CEOs of the top Fortune 100 companies, which showed that just 64% fall within this personality category.

We found that CEOs like Elon Musk have the DI Personality Type. Does this mean that if you don’t have a personality like Elon, you couldn’t become a CEO?

Not quite.

We will dig into certain industries where it’s advantageous not to have Elon’s personality style and where the D and DI personality traits can get in the way of innovation.

Table of Contents

Research: DISC Personality Types of CEOs
85% to 90% of Fortune 100 CEOs h ave this personality
What if you don’t have a D or DI Personality? Can you still become a CEO?
How to find your DISC Style

Research: DISC Personality Types of CEOs

We wanted to better understand the most common personality type among CEOs, and we found that CEOs most commonly have a D or DI style.

To start this research, we needed to find what organizations were searching for in their candidates for this position. Fortunately, the hiring platform Indeed has lots of data on this area that we could use.

CEO Job Descriptions

Indeed has outlined the standard responsibilities of your average CEO based on job descriptions for positions posted on their platform:

Act as the figurative head of the organization when communicating with stockholders, government entities, and the general public.
Lead the development of the organization’s long- and short-term strategies.
Manage overall operations and make major decisions affecting the organization.
Manage the organization’s resources.
Negotiate or approve agreements and contracts for the organization.
Manage company organizational structure.
Communicate with the board of directors.
Assess and minimize risks to the company.
Set strategic goals.
Provide company-wide leadership.
Serve as the company’s primary spokesperson.
Identify and address companywide problems.
Develop and uphold the company’s culture and mission/vision.
Implement strategic plans by working with senior stakeholders.
Evaluate and track the success of the company in reaching its goals.

It’s possible that certain industries or organizations might remove or add a bullet on this list. For the sake of our study, we will use this list and compare it to what the DISC model measures.

How DISC Characteristics Match A CEO Job Description

DISC Assessments identify a person’s personality style or type by having them select adjectives or phrases that correspond with how they see themselves.

For example, during the DISC assessment, users are asked if they prefer to focus on results. This is one of the core traits of a chief executive officer as outlined by Indeed’s data.

During the DISC validation process, psychometricians use a statistical model to assess correlations among word groupings. The scores that are closer to ‘1’ indicate a strong relationship between the description and the personality type, whereas negative scores have inverse relationships (or don’t correspond)

Below are the statistical correlations for the four main DISC types and how they scored on the question that asks users to determine if they prefer or don’t prefer to focus on results. based on research from the Everything DiSC Manual:

Statistical Scores for DISC Styles that "Prefer to Focus on Results"

D Personality	I Personality	S Personality	C Personality
.35	.13	-.26	-.17

Looking at this data, the D Personality Type (.35) shows the strongest correlation with the description, followed by the I Personality Type (.23).

Both the S Personality Type (-.23) and the C Personality Type (-.17) show negative responses to this question, indicating that they would use an opposite description of themselves.

This makes sense, since one of the DISC model’s dimensions assesses a person’s relationship with their environment. The D and I styles both feel they have more power over their environment than the S or C styles, who are more likely to adapt to their environment.

Focusing on results isn’t an “adaptable” trait – it’s a “I have power over my environment” trait.

When you expand these numbers to all 12 DISC Personality Types, we can see personality differences even more clearly.

D	DI/ID	I	IS/SI	S	SC/CS	C	CD/DC
.35	.38	.13	-.13	-.26	-.32	-.17	.09

The D and DI/ID rank higher for focusing on results than any of the other DISC Styles.

Focusing on results, however, isn’t the only desirable trait organizations want to see in their CEO. Next, we will look at the other traits that are measured by DISC to see how they compare with expectations around a CEO’s personality.

The DISC Characteristics that Match A CEO's Job Description

DISC assessments ask users to answer many questions about themselves, and we can group those questions into five items that organizations are seeking in their next CEO (based on Indeed’s Data):

Promoting Bold Action
Finding Opportunities
Taking Charge
Focusing on Results
Stretching the Boundaries

These five areas are measured based on each DISC style. The chart below shows the highest correlations and how they match to the CEO characteristics that are outlined by Indeed:

DISC Attribute	CEO Description
Promoting Bold Action: DI (.63) and D (.35)	Lead the development of the organization’s long- and short-term strategies. Serve as the company’s primary spokesperson. Identify and address companywide problems. Act as the figurative head of the organization when communicating with stockholders, government entities and the general public.
Finding Opportunities: DI (.52) and D (.21)	Negotiate or approve agreements and contracts for the organization. Communicate with the board of directors. Implement strategic plans by working with senior stakeholders. Set strategic goals.
Taking Charge: DI (.54) and D (.57)	Provide company-wide leadership. Implement strategic plans by working with senior stakeholders. Manage overall operations and make major decisions affecting the organization. Manage the organization’s resources.
Focusing on Results: DI (.50) and D (.35)	Evaluate and track the success of the company in reaching its goals. Set strategic goals. Manage overall operations and make major decisions affecting the organization.

Clearly, the D and DI styles are more representative of these traits than the other styles. But what does this look like in real life?

We will now examine the Fortune 100 CEOs to determine whether their personalities match the D or DI personality type. We focus on this group because they are likely to be the most active in media engagement without allowing us to pick and choose the CEOs we want to look at to prove our point.

D and DI Personality Types: CEO Examples

We trained an AI to understand the DISC model. Using this tool, we asked the AI model to look at the Fortune 100 CEOs and predict their DISC Style.

From this exercise, we found 64 out of 100 CEOs had a D or DI Style. Unsurprisingly, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is one of our DI personalities.

You can see the full list below:

F100 Company	CEO	Predicted DISC Style
Walmart	John Furner	DI
Amazon	Andy Jassy	DC
UnitedHealth Group	Andrew Witty	D
Apple	Tim Cook	C
Alphabet	Sundar Pichai	SI
CVS Health	David Joyner	CD
McKesson	Brian Tyler	D
Berkshire Hathaway	Greg Abel	C
Exxon Mobil	Darren Woods	D
Cencora	Robert Mauch	DC
Costco Wholesale	Ron Vachris	S
Microsoft	Satya Nadella	SI
Cigna	David Cordani	D
Cardinal Health	Jason Hollar	DC
Chevron	Mike Wirth	D
Bank of America	Brian Moynihan	D
General Motors	Mary Barra	DI
Ford Motor	Jim Farley	DI
Elevance Health	Gail Boudreaux	D
Citigroup	Jane Fraser	DI
Meta Platforms	Mark Zuckerberg	DI
JPMorgan Chase	Jamie Dimon	D
Centene	Sarah London	DC
Home Depot	Edward Decker	D
Walgreens	Timothy Wentworth	D
Fannie Mae	Priscilla Almodovar	CD
Kroger	Rodney McMullen	SC
Phillips 66	Mark Lashier	D
Marathon Petroleum	Maryann Mannen	D
StoneX Group	Philip Smith	DI
Humana	James Rechtin	D
AT&T	John Stankey	D
Comcast	Brian Roberts	D
State Farm	Jon Farney	SC
Freddie Mac	Kenny Smith	C
PepsiCo	Ramon Laguarta	DI
Wells Fargo	Charles Scharf	DC
Walt Disney	Bob Iger	I
ConocoPhillips	Ryan Lance	D
Tesla	Elon Musk	DI
Procter & Gamble	Jon Moeller	C
General Electric	Larry Culp	DC
Albertsons	Susan Morris	S
MetLife	Michel Khalaf	DC
Goldman Sachs	David Solomon	D
Sysco	Kevin Hourican	D
RTX	Chris Calio	CD
Boeing	Kelly Ortberg	D
Lockheed Martin	Jim Taiclet	D
Morgan Stanley	Ted Pick	D
Intel	Pat Gelsinger	DC
HP	Enrique Lores	C
TD Synnex	Patrick Zammit	C
IBM	Arvind Krishna	DC
HCA Healthcare	Samuel Hazen	D
Prudential Financial	Andrew Sullivan	D
Caterpillar	Joseph Creed	D
Merck	Robert Davis	CD
American Express	Stephen Squeri	DI
FedEx	Raj Subramaniam	D
Energy Transfer	Thomas Long	D
Allstate	Thomas Wilson	D
Pfizer	Albert Bourla	DI
Johnson & Johnson	Joaquin Duato	DI
UPS	Carol Tomé	DC
Progressive	Tricia Griffith	SI
Lowe's	Marvin Ellison	D
Archer Daniels Mid.	Juan Luciano	D
Target	Brian Cornell	iS
Dell Technologies	Michael Dell	DI
Valero Energy	Lane Riggs	D
United Airlines	Scott Kirby	D
Nike	Elliott Hill	DI
T-Mobile US	Mike Sievert	DI
Oracle	Safra Catz	D
Coca-Cola	James Quincey	DI
General Dynamics	Phebe Novakovic	D
AbbVie	Richard Gonzalez	D
Cisco Systems	Chuck Robbins	DI
Netflix	Ted Sarandos	I
Northrop Grumman	Kathy Warden	D
Thermo Fisher	Marc Casper	D
Honeywell	Vimal Kapur	DC
Abbott Laboratories	Robert Ford	D
3M	Bill Brown	D
Deere	John May	D
Salesforce	Marc Benioff	I
Bristol Myers Squibb	Chris Boerner	DC
Amgen	Robert Bradway	D
American Airlines	Robert Isom	D
Gilead Sciences	Daniel O'Day	DC
Mondelez Internat.	Dirk Van de Put	DI
Altria Group	Billy Gifford	D
Starbucks	Brian Niccol	DI
PBF Energy	Matt Lucey	D
Halliburton	Jeff Miller	D
Best Buy	Corie Barry	iS
TIAA	Thasunda Duckett	I
NVIDIA	Jensen Huang	DI
Eli Lilly	David Ricks	DI

What makes this exercise so interesting is that the D and DI personality types represent only 6% of the population. This style is the least common, but most common among CEOs.

What if you don't have a D or DI Personality? Can you still become a CEO?

If you’ve looked at our list of Fortune 100 CEOs, you will find that just under 40 CEOs don’t have a D or DI personality type.

There is a trend that can help explain why certain organizations may want a different type of leader with a very different personality from the D or DI types.

Innovation CEOs

In 1983, John Sculley made one of the most famous career moves in business history. Scully left his role as President of PepsiCo to become the CEO of Apple. He was famously lured by Steve Jobs with the stinging challenge: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

During his ten-year tenure (1983–1993), Sculley oversaw a period of massive financial growth. However, his legacy remains polarized between his marketing brilliance and his failure to keep pace with the rapidly evolving PC market. As profits plummeted and the company’s stock price fell, Apple’s board eventually forced him out in 1993.

Liz Wiseman’s book, Multipliers, helps us understand why this might have happened by showing research where organizations that want to create an innovative culture do worse under results-focused leadership.

John Scully had a personality that focused on achieving results. He was likely a DC/CD personality type.

The largest technology companies find CEOs who focus on creating a culture of innovation rather than results. Here is a short list:

Satya Nadella (Microsoft) – SI
Sundar Pichai (Alphabet) – SI
Ted Sarandos (Netflix) – I
Marc Benioff (Salesforce) – I

When you focus on collaboration and stability, it allows teams and individuals to imagine and create. This is one of the primary reasons we don’t subscribe to the idea that there is one specific leadership style. Each organization or team has different needs, and the leader either meets them or leaves them unmet.

Industries Where Non-D/Di Styles Make Sense

There are other industries that might not require collaboration, but they do require other characteristics more than driving home results.

Utilities and Heavy Infrastructure

These industries operate on 30-year investment cycles and strict government regulation. “Promoting Bold Action” (a high Di trait) is often viewed as a risk rather than an asset when the goal is 99.99% reliability.

The Match: SC (Steadiness/Conscientiousness)
Why: High correlation with “Maintaining Stability” and “Promoting Disciplined Analysis.”
Fortune 100 CEOs:
- Rodney McMullen (Kroger) – Retail/Supply Chain stability.
- Jon Farney (State Farm) – Mutual insurance/Infrastructure stability.
- Craig DeSanto (New York Life) – Long-term life insurance stability.

Specialized Technology & Precision Engineering

In “Deep Tech” or high-precision manufacturing, the cost of being wrong is higher than the benefit of being fast. These companies need a CEO who prioritizes “Accuracy” over “Speed.”

The Match: C (Conscientiousness) or CD (Conscientiousness/Dominance)
Why: These styles match the practice of Promoting Disciplined Analysis.
CEOs from your list:
- Tim Cook (Apple) – Known for supply chain precision and methodical product cycles.
- Darren Woods (Exxon Mobil) – Engineering-heavy, high-risk operational environment.
- Chris Calio (RTX / Raytheon) – Aerospace and Defense where accuracy is life-or-death.

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