Personal Belbin Team Roles: Understand how you contribute to a team

Belbin organizes the nine roles into three categories: Action-Oriented, People-Oriented, and Thought-Oriented. Each role has characteristic strengths and what Belbin calls ‘allowable weaknesses’ – trade-offs that naturally accompany the strengths.

Action-oriented roles

• Shaper: Driven and challenging, Shapers thrive under pressure and push the team to maintain momentum. They’re not afraid of conflict and will challenge complacency. The allowable weakness is that they can be provocative or impatient.
  
• Implementer: Reliable and disciplined, Implementers turn ideas into practical action plans. They’re organized and efficient, and they bring structure to the team’s work. But they can sometimes be slow to adapt to change.
  
• Completer Finisher: Detail-oriented and conscientious, Completer Finishers ensure nothing is overlooked and work is delivered to a high standard. They catch errors others miss. They may struggle, however, to delegate and can be overly anxious about quality.

People-oriented roles

• Co-ordinator: Calm and confident, Co-ordinators clarify goals, delegate effectively, and draw out contributions from the whole team. They’re natural chairs who help groups make decisions. Though they can sometimes be perceived as manipulative or as offloading their own work.
  
• Teamworker: Supportive and diplomatic, Teamworkers help the team to gel. They’re sensitive to dynamics, help to smooth out friction, and keep communication flowing. They may avoid confrontation and struggle to make difficult decisions.
  
• Resource Investigator: Enthusiastic and outgoing, Resource Investigators build networks, explore opportunities, and bring external ideas back to the team. They’re excellent at opening doors. But they can lose enthusiasm once the initial excitement fades.

Thought-oriented roles

• Plant: Creative and imaginative, Plants generate original ideas and novel solutions. They’re the team’s source of innovation. They can be preoccupied with their own thoughts, however, and may struggle to communicate ideas practically.
  
• Monitor Evaluator: Analytical and objective, Monitor Evaluators provide the team with sound judgement and critical thinking. They’re good at seeing all the options and assessing them fairly. But they can come across as overly critical or uninspiring.
  
• Specialist: Dedicated and knowledgeable, Specialists bring deep technical expertise to the team. They’re the go-to person for specialist knowledge. Their focus can be narrow, and they may contribute only on their area of expertise.

For leadership development, Belbin is valuable in two ways. First, it helps you understand your own contribution to the teams you’re part of, or leading. Using a self assessment tool and knowing your preferred roles helps you play to your strengths, and understanding your weaker roles helps you recognize where you might need to compensate or seek support.

Second – and perhaps more importantly – it helps you build and manage better teams. If you understand the nine roles, you can identify gaps in your team’s composition, assign work that plays to people’s natural strengths, and reduce conflict by helping team members appreciate that different working styles are complementary contributions, not flaws.