Belbin team roles

Belbin's research

In the 1970s Meredith Belbin observed management teams taking part in business games at Henley Management College. He noticed that a team's success depended less on members' intelligence than on a balance of roles. Teams of very clever people (the so-called “Apollo teams”) often did poorly, because everyone wanted to debate and nobody to execute. He described his findings in Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail (1981).

Nine roles

Application

• Everyone usually has 2-3 preferred roles and some they avoid.
• “Allowable weaknesses” are the price of strengths - rather than fighting them, it is worth allowing for them.
• A leader can deliberately add missing roles to the team.

Assessment

The model is widely used in practice, though research on its validity and measurement instrument gives mixed results. Its greatest value is a simple idea: a team needs diversity.

A biblical perspective

Saint Paul writes about the variety of gifts in one body: there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit (1 Cor 12:4-27; Rom 12:4-8). A community that values different talents fulfils its mission better. See team leadership, stages of team development.