Belbin’s Team Roles

The Implementer can sometimes be conservative and inflexible, especially if the practical benefit of a new plan or idea is not immediately apparent. In the face of ideas in early stages, unexpected opportunities and changes to plans, they may express blistering criticism and show resistance. This can lead to good innovations sometimes too quickly being set aside as impractical or unbeneficial. Their enormous decisiveness sometimes also causes the Implementer to spring into action too quickly and begin organising, arranging, and structuring before the objective is clearly outlined.

The Resource Investigator is an extrovert and someone who is likeable, cordial, jovial, and always searching for new information and interesting contacts. A curious explorer, who easily makes new contacts and seems to have countless connections. Due to versatile and agile interests, they are often seen as creative, although they are more likely to be an attentive compiler than a real inventor of ideas.

The Resource Investigator is focused on brainstorming, innovating and developing, and loves to improvise. Playful, furtive, positive, enthusiastic, they are a permanent source of information.

The Resource Investigator may suffer from overenthusiasm and is often easily distracted. They may continuously be drawn into appealing, interesting matters that are ultimately irrelevant for the team and may lose focus if the work pressure (or the appeal of novelty) decreases. They are nonchalant with regard to details or matters that their hearts are not in.

The Plant is the innovator, the inventor, the creative, conceptual thinker whose ideas and alternatives distinguish themselves in originality and imagination. The Plant is a free spirit who needs the space to daydream, to design strategies and scenarios for the future, and to constantly find surprising, new solutions to old problems.

The Plant is introverted and idiosyncratic. They prefer their own solutions and prefer to work somewhat detached from the team. The Plant channels a great deal of energy into their inventions and can sometimes have trouble keeping their feet on the ground.

The creative efforts of the Plant do not always align with the needs of the team or the assignment. They can think far ahead and because of that may lose sight of the here and now. Moreover, they sometimes struggle to put their views into words in clear and concise language, causing them to lose connection with the team. The Plant may feel insulted and hide away if their ideas are received with criticism. They may feel discouraged from proposing ideas in a group if the other personality types are too result oriented and practically minded.

The Monitor is the thoughtful evaluator and deliberator, whose contribution is rooted in logical analysis. The Monitor wants to know why, wants to investigate and understand. They quickly identify the weaknesses in a plan or argument.

The Monitor looks for insight and overview, and loves to contemplate. They are sensible and cautious and like to have things explained to them. They also like to explain everything, which can result in it taking them a long time to take a decision. But even if they can sometimes barely stop their deliberations, their conclusion is rarely incorrect.

The Monitor can sometimes be overly critical, causing new, immature ideas to be disqualified in advance and the decision making to be delayed because they constantly put forward new issues and condemn solutions. They can suddenly become competitive, entering into intelligent but stubborn debate with other Monitors and Plants. In addition, they tend to be slow to act, even if quick action is required.

The Shaper is a driven, strong-willed person with a great deal of energy and a strong drive to perform. They are quick, impulsive and impatient. The Shaper challenges others and easily feels challenged themselves. They enjoy confrontation and adversarial debate. They like to think things are black/white and you’re either for or against. They are extremely result oriented and will do everything to win. The Shaper is focused on results, takes ownership of those results, and knows how to get others moving. The Shaper is a bold and outspoken entrepreneur, who makes sure things are set in motion.

With all their willpower, a Shaper may override other members of the team, especially if they are in a position of authority. Moreover, they may compete for the role of expert, especially against the Plant and the Monitor.

The Coordinator constantly seeks consensus within the group. They are the natural coordinator who looks after procedures, helps team members clarify intentions and summarises what everyone wants. They have a nose for talent, encourage every team member to use their talents, and know how to utilise people to their full potential. Therefore, delegating comes naturally to them allowing them to maintain oversight.

 The Coordinator is extrovert, positive and open-minded, but does tend to stick to protocol. They do not typically possess remarkable intellectual or creative talent.

A Coordinator aims for results and can really push for decisions. By putting too much emphasis on speed and progress in decision making, certain talents tend to go underutilised. In addition, a Coordinator can be overly procedural and hold on to an “all decisions are final” view, even if relevant new insights or questions emerge. Their attempts to garner support can come across as manipulative.

The Completer Finisher is the team role talent with a strong sense for danger and potential errors. In addition, they exercise great care towards both people and matters and want to get everything done neatly, as agreed, and down to the last detail. The Completer Finisher constantly monitors, based on feeling, whether everything is still going as it should. Where necessary, they check things right down to the smallest detail.

The Completer Finisher takes charge of quality assurance. They impose extremely high standards and often have little tolerance for those who don't make a proper effort.

Completer Finishers have a strong intuition for things that go wrong but they also tend to worry about things that are not really obstacles. This can have a discouraging effect on the team and apply the brakes too much. In the face of changes, their eye for detail sometimes becomes overactive, overemphasising details that have not yet been filled in, causing them to become insecure and rigid or even to display strong resistance to the change altogether. They can be intolerant towards people with a more superficial and adventurous attitude.

The Team-worker is the most empathic and supportive member of the team. They are helpful, accommodating and strongly focused on creating a pleasant atmosphere and a sense of togetherness. They are good listeners and encourage others to listen as well.

The Team-worker seeks balance and harmony and tries to prevent conflict through tact and diplomacy. Using their highly sensitive social antennae and communicative agility, the Team-worker fosters team spirit and knows how to bring people together. The Team-worker struggles with conflict and may have trouble taking decisions at critical times.

The harmonious Team-worker may shy away from confrontations and struggle to take decisions if there are clear differences of opinion within a group. Sometimes they can create an atmosphere in which things are not taken very seriously. By keeping things airy, jokey, and superficial, the difficult decisions tend not to be made. Because they struggle to address and discuss tensions, they may resort to gossiping or creating alliances against another team member.

The Specialist is a dedicated professional, whose contribution primarily lies in their technical skills and specialist knowledge.

The specialist is a silent and unwavering soloist, who prioritises upholding professional standards and defending their specific field of expertise.

The Specialist does not readily venture beyond the boundaries of their field of expertise and is often not particularly interested in the professional fields of others. The Specialist prefers to focus on one thing. On that foundation, they build a relationship with the outside world and in this way develop into an expert.

A Specialist is fully focused on their role as an expert, often causing them to frustrate the more creative and shaping members of a team and to respond defensively to anyone who interferes in their work. They can sometimes be so solitary that they only want to take part in the conversation if it touches on their expertise, causing their involvement with the team as a whole to disappear (Splendid Isolation).