Belbin Team Roles FAQs

What is a Belbin Team Role?

A team role, as defined by Dr Meredith Belbin, is: "A tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way." Belbin team roles describe a pattern of behaviour that characterises one person's behaviour in relationship to another in facilitating the progress of a team. The value of Belbin Team Role theory lies in enabling an individual or team to benefit from self knowledge and adjust according to the demands being made by the external situation.

How did the Belbin concept originate?

During a period of over nine years, Meredith Belbin and his team of researchers based at Henley Management College, England, studied the behaviour of managers from all over the world. Managers taking part in the study were given a battery of psychometric tests and put into teams of varying composition, while they were engaged in a complex management exercise. Their different core personality traits, intellectual styles and behaviours were assessed during the exercise. As time progressed different clusters of behaviour were identified as underlying the success of the teams. These successful clusters of behaviour were then given names. Hence the emergence of nine team roles. Results from this research showed that there are a finite number of behaviours or Team Roles which comprise certain patterns of behaviour which can be adopted naturally by the various personality types found among people at work. The accurate delineation of these Team Roles is critical in understanding the dynamics of any management or work team.

What can be gained by identifying people's Belbin Team Roles?

It is difficult to work effectively with people without some reasonable expectations of how they are going to perform. Self and Observer Assessments helps show how an individual feels and how an individual behaves in a group.

Why use Observer Assessment?

Observer Assessments help provide independent evidence from colleagues about an individual's team roles. A Self-Perception test is only as good as an individual's self understanding and requires realism and honesty. Some people can answer in terms of how they would like to contribute rather than how they really behave and observe assessment can help give a more rounded or complete picture.

Can I change Team Roles?

Team roles can develop and mature over time. These may change with experience, role/job change, conscious effort or attention. Different team roles can also become more pronounced in relation or reaction to particular situations such as a change in job, promotion, change of manager / management style or introduction of a new member to the team that changes the team dynamic.

Should I let people know my preferred Team Roles?

We believe sharing of team roles helps increase behavioural understanding and enables mutual expectations to be met more effectively so tends to recommend this unless there is a specifc and valid reason for not sharing this information.

What is an Allowable Weakness?

Sometimes a strength in one of the team roles can be perceived as a weakness in another context. For example, a person whose preferred team role is Monitor Evaluator is likely to be very objective, impartial and good at carefully weighing up all possibilities to make the right decision. Yet someone with these strengths may well come across as being unenthusiastic or even boring. Any failure to inspire is apt to obscure the true strengths of a Monitor Evaluator. That weakness can be reckoned the price that necessarily has to be paid for the strength and in this sense it is termed 'Allowable'.

What is a Team-Role Sacrifice?

In some circumstances an individual will need to forgo using his/her leading or preferred team role and adopt another in its place. This shift may be rendered necessary due to the lack of a good example of a desired role within the team or because another person is already contributing on common preferred ground. Such a shift from preferred behaviour is known as "making a team-role sacrifice".

When I know my strongest Team Roles, what shall I do about it?

A person's overall strongest roles are the ones most appreciated by other people. Develop and play these roles with enthusiasm, because this is where you are likely to make a mark. At the same time note of your lowest roles and find a strategy to avoid exposure by trying to play them. So try to work with people who are strong in the roles in which you are weak.

What about the reliability and validity of the reports?

Reliability and validity are concepts commonly used in evaluating Psychometric Tests. Reliability is a measure of the internal consistency of a test, while validity relates to whether a test measures what it purports to measure. Internal consistency is highest where test items are repeated, but this narrows their focus. Rather than repeating questions, or dealing with items that are virtually identical, the Team Roles reporting system (INTERPLACE) seeks to find clusters of useful forms of related behaviour. For example, the Shaper cluster refers to an individual who is challenging, competitive, hard driving, tough and outspoken. However, that does not mean that everyone who is competitive happens to be outspoken.

Most Psychometric tests rely on self-reporting. But here the behaviour assumed may not correspond with what others observe. The strength of INTERPLACE lies in its emphasis on validity, for its counselling outputs are designed to take account of a consensus on observed behaviour. This can be made evident by looking at how far the Observers agree with each other. Formal correlations are, however, difficult to calculate as Observers are not required to make any fixed number of responses. Genuine responses are more easily obtained, and are more valuable, when forced choices are avoided. Differences in perception between the self and others provide valuable leads for action. The demands of jobs also have to be taken into account when assessing validity since the many varied forms of behaviour can be seen as effective or ineffective according to the context. Here the fit between the profile of the individual and the profile of the job plays a key consideration.