A520.8.3 Team Roles

The roles of the team members are a crucial component to building a successful team. This includes the leader and the followers, each needs to understand their purpose.  In any professional team sport, there are positions on the field that must be filled each adding to the single goal.  It is not the individual that makes the outcomes of team but rather the whole team, therefore it is important during team developmental process and repair to correctly link the members up to appropriate engaged roles (Belbin, 2011).  Belbin (1976) identified nine roles of members of a team: plant, coordinator, sharper, team-worker, completer, implementer, investigator, specialist, evaluator.  Each of roles can be further broken into two distinct types those that support the teams mission and those that engage the relationship process internal to the team (Wheeten & Cameron, 2016).  Task orientation roles include the completer, the specialists, the plant, the evaluator.  Task oriented roles tend to focus more on the outcome of the team and production, many major corporations use this successful model to push production.  

In my professional career I tend to play key roles in leadership, I am normally the coordinator or the specialist.  I think that roles change depending on the makeup of the team and the objectives of the day.  While I serve as the coordinator role I am seen as the extrovert leader that is positive and has self-control throughout all stages of team development.  I actively try to clarify goals, rules and boundaries in the mission.  It is during this role where I reach out to the other members and delegate, delegate and delegate.  It is easier for me to delegate than to actually perform mission.  As a coordinator I work on collaboration throughout team roles.  Finding the right skills for the right task without over tasking.   

Throughout my career I have to turn to my other role as a specialist.  This is my introvert, narrowly focused self for the betterment of the mission.  It is during this role where I focus in on solving the problem for myself in the team, though benefiting the whole.  For example, I was stationed at a laboratory for several months to develop a new system.  During this time I was self-starting and dedicated to the task; I preformed this task with very little guidance or direction.  As a specialist, I deliver products to the leadership, while I might collaborate with other specialist my focus is contributing to the teams' mission.  

Neither of these roles is wrong.  They each serve the team in their own way.  Both of these roles are task-oriented and I recognize that this is a deficiency as neither is personality focused.  Throughout this course I hope that I can use the tools that I learn to fulfill different roles.  There is so much more that I have to adapt to be able to fulfill new roles in my teams.            

References

Belbin, R. M., Aston, B. R., & Mottram, R. D. (1976). Building effective management teams. Journal of General Management, 3(3), 23-29.

Belbin, R. M. (2011). Management teams: Why they succeed or fail. In J. Law, Business: the ultimate resource (3rd ed.). London, UK: A&C Black

Oke, A. E., Olatunji, S. O., Awodele, A. O., Akinola, J. A., & Kuma-Agbenyo, M. (2016). importance of team roles composition to success of construction projects. International Journal of Construction Project Management, 8(2), 141.

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing Management Skills (Ninth Edition). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education