Is There a Winning Personality Type for Top Advisors?

What differentiates a top-performing advisory firm from others? It’s a crucial question not only for successful firms, which naturally want to maintain their leadership, but also for other firms that want to join the pantheon of industry leaders.

With that in mind, AssetMark, an independent provider of investment and consulting solutions for financial advisors, embarked on a year-long study of high-growth firms whose leaders interacted with each other in order to reach a consensus on best practices to drive growth. Included in the study was an investigation of personality types within firms to see if there were a specific set of characteristics or behaviors among advisors that contributed to their firm’s success.

Altogether, the heads of 41 advisory firms across the country with sustained annual growth rates above 20% and a minimum $25 million in assets under management participated in the study.

Among the study’s key findings: no single personality style dominated in the leading firms. “There wasn’t any consistency in [personality] profiles,” says Matt Matrisian, senior vice president of practice management and strategic initiatives at AssetMark. “Personality didn’t dictate [success].”

The study used the DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance) behavioral style assessment tool and the behavioral assessment styles of TTI Success Insights, which extends the DISC styles to eight distinct personality types: conductor, promoter, implementer, supporter, persuader, realtor, coordinator and analyzer.

Even though the study found that “there was not one particularly dominant profile,” it did conclude that knowing DISC “could be a valuable tool in creating a successful team by adding individuals with (perceived) complementary DISC styles.” It could help with team building and hiring, promoting harmony and decreasing conflict, according to the report.