A Comparison of the Belbin Self Perception Inventory and Observer's Assessment Sheet as Measures of an Individual's Team Roles

The Beibin Team Role Self-Perception Inventory (SPI) is a well-known and well-used measure for identifying an individual's team roles. Less well-known is Belbin's Observer's Assessment Sheet (OAS) which can also be used by colleagues of the individual concerned or, at least, those who know him or her well. To assess team role this study compared these two different team role measures when applied to a sample of 65 members of 11 different management teams. The results showed that only 35 of the 65 observer sets agreed amongst themselves about the team roles of the individual they observed and only seven of these 35 sets showed good agreement between the observers' assessments and those of the individuals themselves. Positive correlations between the SPI scores and the OAS scores were found for only five of the nine team roles. The findings are discussed in terms of inter-rater problems and the reliability of the instruments.