A revised model of team roles and some
research findings
Tony Manning, Richard Parker and Graham Pogson
Tony Manning is an
Independent Consultant
based in Selkirk, UK. He is
also a part-time Lecturer in
the School of Management
and Languages at the
Scottish Borders Campus
of Heriot-Watt University,
Galashiels, UK. Richard
Parker is an Independent
Consultant based in
Islington, London, UK.
Graham Pogson is a
Lecturer in the School of
Management and
Languages at the Scottish
Borders Campus of
Heriot-Watt University,
Galashiels, UK.
DOI 10.1108/00197850610685590
Abstract
Purpose – To provide a critique of Belbin’s team role theory, including the provision of a re-definition of
the concept of team role and an adequate framework for relating personality to team roles. The
re-defined concept of team roles has a significant social dimension that relates it to the roles people
habitually play in teams, the autonomy provided by such roles and their commitment to them. It also
advocates the use of the ‘‘Big Five’’ model for describing individual personality differences and relating
them to team role behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach – A revised model of team role behaviour is described, along with a
brief account of the ‘‘Big Five’’ model of personality, and findings are presented that relate team role
behaviour to three sets of variables, namely, personality, team role expectations and team role
orientation, including autonomy and commitment.
Findings – Team role behaviour is described using both self-assessments and aggregated
assessments by others derived from instruments using Likert-type scales. Information is presented
showing the relationship between these measures of team role behaviour and three sets of variables,
namely, personality, team role expectations and team role orientation, including autonomy and
commitment. These findings support the idea that team roles have a significant social dimension and
that the ‘‘Big Five’’ model of personality provides a useful model for relating team role behaviour to
individual personality traits.
Research limitations/implications – The research does not look at a number of other issues raised by
Belbin’s theory of team roles, including the relationship between team composition and team
effectiveness. Further research, using the measures described in the article, could be carried out to
explore this relationship in actual teams, including exploring team composition in different work
contexts.
Practical implications – The main implication of the research is that, while team role behaviour does
appear to be related in part to individual personality traits, such traits are much less constraining than
Belbin’s theory suggests. Team role behaviour can usefully be seen, in part at least, as learned social
behaviour, with individuals learning to play different roles in teams. Thus attempts to improve team
effectiveness would benefit from looking more at learned behaviour (including leadership, problem
solving, work organisation and interpersonal skills, as well as specialist expertise relevant to the
particular team), while focusing relatively less on assessment, selection, placement and guidance.
Originality/value – Previous research on, and criticisms of, Belbin’s team role theory have challenged it
from within the discipline of psychology. This research is unique in criticising it from a more sociological
perspective. It is also unique in shifting the practical focus for improving team effectiveness away from
assessment, selection, placement and guidance to learned behaviour and skills.
Keywords Team working, Personality, Psychological tests, Training, Management development
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Meredith Belbin’s team role theory (Belbin, 1981) retains its popularity as a theory of team
working, particularly in the fields of management training and development, and his
Team-Role Self-Perception Inventory (BTRSPI) is used extensively in the UK in a variety of
applied settings, including selecting, counselling and developing management teams
VOL. 38 NO. 6 2006, pp. 287-296, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0019-7858 j INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING j PAGE 287
 (Hogg, 1990). However, as Furnham (2005) points out, this instrument has received
comparatively little psychometric assessment or validation and concludes that:
It is both interesting and annoying to academics to find that both consultants and clients seem
uninterested and disinterested in validating theories and measures upon which they often make
enormously important decisions. Even more perplexing is the fact that once measures have been
shown to be seriously wanting, it has little or no effect on the popular use and retention of the
measure.

This article is a response to some of the criticisms of Belbin’s team role theory and his Team
Role Self-Perception Inventory. It builds on an earlier article by one of the authors (Manning,
1997) in which it is argued that, while team role theory does offer a useful but limited model
for exploring team composition, there is a need for both a re-definition of the concept of a
team role and an adequate framework for actually describing personality. It describes a
concept of team role with a significant social dimension. This recognises the importance of
social learning and relates this to the roles that people habitually play in teams, the autonomy
provided by such roles and their commitment to them. It also advocates the use of the ‘‘Big
Five’’ model for describing individual differences in personality.
The earlier article (Manning, 1997) acknowledged some of the major problems with the
BTRSPI. It then went on to briefly describe a variety of new measures, developed by the
author and Richard Parker of Daedal Training, designed to overcome these problems. These
included: self-assessment and peer rating questionnaires (without forced-choice scoring)
looking at the ways individuals habitually behave in teams, with results expressed in team
role terms; a questionnaire to explore the social dimension more fully, including role
expectations, autonomy and commitment; self-assessment and peer rating adjective
checklists to provide scores on the ‘‘Big Five’’ personality factors. These measures are
briefly described in the Appendix.
In the period since 1997, the authors have used the above measures to collect data from
individuals working in actual teams, in a variety of different contexts, who participated in
training and development activities, including team development activities, put on by the
authors. This article outlines the revised team role model and presents findings that lend
support to the model itself, as well as the associated measures. Two important conclusions
emerge from this. First, that the ‘‘Big Five’’ model does provide a useful framework for
exploring the relationship between personality and team roles. Second, that when exploring
team roles, there should be less focus on the constraining influence of personality and more
focus on team roles as learned social roles.

Re-defining team roles

Belbin (1981) argues that people contribute to teams in two ways: they perform functional
and team roles. Functional roles relate to technical or specialist expertise, whereas team
roles relate to the type of contribution that they make to the internal workings of teams. Belbin
(1981) further suggested that the personal characteristics of the individual fit them for some
roles while limiting the likelihood that they will succeed in others. In his later work, Belbin
(1993) acknowledges the impact of wider environmental factors, and recognises the
capacity that individuals have to play different roles, although these ideas are not developed
and the emphasis is on how an individual’s team role emerges from the particular
combination of personality characteristics. Thus assessment, selection, placement and
guidance are for him the key tools in improving team effectiveness.
It is the view of the authors that the concepts of team role and personality have become
inter-twined in Belbin’s model of team roles, in that a team role is seen essentially as a cluster
of personality characteristics. This concept of a team role is very psychological in nature.
However, the more general notion of a ‘‘role’’ is much more sociological and refers to an
individual’s social position and the expectations associated with it. According to this notion
of a role, how people see themselves will depend, in part at least, on the social positions that
they habitually adopt, and on what is expected of them in such positions. In this sense, the
concept of a ‘‘team role’’ can be seen as a sub-set of the wider concept of a role. Moreover,

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an individual’s behaviour in such a role is also likely to depend on both the autonomy that
they have in that role and their commitment to it. This is not, of course, to deny that an
individual’s personality characteristics may influence how he or she behaves in a particular
role but simply to emphasise that roles, including team roles, are essentially social. This
re-defined concept of a team role is illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1 shows the relationship between an individual’s team role behaviour (i.e. their
habitual way of behaving in a particular team) and three sets of factors, namely, their
personality, the expectations of that role and their orientation to it. These three sets of factors
are described briefly below and are followed by research findings on their observed
relationship to team role behaviour. These findings lend support to the model itself and to the
usefulness of the various measures.

Personality and team role behaviour

The ‘‘Big Five’’ factor model of personality provides a potentially useful framework for
exploring the relationship between an individual’s personality and their team role behaviour.
Advocates of this model have argued that there has been a convergence in personality
theory and research that makes it possible to describe the differences between people by
locating them on five independent dimensions of personality (see, for example, Costa and
McCrae, 1992; Digman and Inouye, 1986; Goldberg, 1993; Norman, 1963; Trapnell and
Wiggins, 1990). The authors’ understanding of these five dimensions, and the labels they
use to describe the polar extremes of each, is described briefly below:
1. Extroversion. This is about the extent to which people are comfortable in social
relationships, how socially inhibited they are. The two extremes are the introvert, who is
uncomfortable in social relationships and socially inhibited, and the extrovert, who is
comfortable in social relationships and socially uninhibited.
2. Tender-mindedness (agreeableness). This is about the extent to which people are
sensitive and responsive to others, including the extent to which they will defer to them.
The two extremes are the tough-minded individual, operating predominantly at a thinking
level, and lacking sensitivity and responsiveness, and the tender-minded individual,
operating predominantly at a feelings level and displaying sensitivity and
responsiveness.

Figure 1 A revised model of team role behaviour

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 3. Conscientiousness. This is about the number of goals that an individual pursues and the
extent to which they pursue them in a focused way. The two extremes are the
spontaneous individual, who pursues many goals but in an unfocused way, and the
conscientious individual, who pursues fewer goals but does so in a more focused,
controlled and structured way.
4. Anxiety. This is about the way in which people respond to the stresses and pressures of
life. At the two extremes are the stable individual, who is emotionally resilient, and the
anxious individual, who is emotionally reactive.
5. Openness. This is about a person’s openness to new experiences and is manifested in
such things as an individual’s breadth of interests, level of creativity and intellectual
qualities. At the two extremes are the conventional individual, who is relatively closed to
new experiences, and the open individual, who is relatively open to such experiences.
Table I summarises the relationships found between self-assessed ratings of the above five
personality dimensions and ratings of team role behaviour. Table I(a) looks at the relationship
between personality dimensions and self-assessments of team role behaviour, while
Table 1(b) looks at the relationships between personality dimensions and peer ratings of
team role behaviour. The strongest observed relationships between personality traits and
both self-assessments and peer ratings of team role behaviour are summarised briefly
below, in order of the strength of the relationship:
1. Extroversion
B Extroverted individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role scales:
Shaper, Resource Investigator and Co-ordinator.
B Introverted individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role scales:
Specialist, Completer Finisher, Monitor Evaluator and Plant (Innovator).
2. Tender-mindedness (agreeableness)
B Tender-minded individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role
scales: Team Worker (Supporter), Co-ordinator, Implementer and Team Player.

Table I Correlation matrices for personality and team roles

Factor I Factor II Factor III Factor IV Factor V

(a) Self-assessed personality and self-assessed team roles (n ¼ 146)

Team worker (supporter) 20.04 0.49 0.25 20.17 0.03
Implementer 0.00 0.32 0.60 20.25 20.06
Specialist 20.22 20.17 0.28 20.07 20.02
Shaper 0.45 0.00 0.18 20.10 0.23
Plant (innovator) 20.06 20.12 20.05 0.02 0.41
Team player 0.09 0.23 0.30 20.22 0.28
Completer finisher 20.19 20.03 0.48 0.06 20.06
Co-ordinator 0.27 0.31 0.47 20.31 0.14
Resource investigator 0.31 0.10 20.07 20.09 0.38
Monitor evaluator 20.16 20.20 0.04 0.09 0.28
(b) Self-assessed personality and other-assessed team roles (n ¼ 52)
Team worker (supporter) 20.03 0.31 20.08 20.07 20.22
Implementer 20.16 0.18 0.36 20.20 20.28
Specialist 20.19 20.36 0.10 0.05 0.17
Shaper 0.29 0.05 0.12 0.07 0.24
Plant (Innovator) 20.10 20.15 20.06 0.02 0.33
Team player 0.02 0.10 0.04 20.07 20.03
Completer finisher 20.09 0.02 0.59 20.12 20.14
Co-ordinator 0.13 0.27 0.24 20.24 20.03
Resource investigator 0.14 20.13 20.36 0.23 0.12
Monitor evaluator 20.25 20.18 20.12 20.03 0.09

Notes: factor I: extroversion; factor II: tender-mindedness (agreeableness); factor III:

conscientiousness; factor IV: anxiety; factor V: openness

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 B Tough-minded individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role
scales: Specialist, Monitor Evaluator and Plant (Innovator).
3. Conscientiousness
B Conscientious individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role
scales: Implementer, Completer Finisher and Co-ordinator.
B Spontaneous individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role scales:
Resource Investigator, Plant (Innovator) and Monitor Evaluator.
4. Anxiety
B Anxious individuals tended to have high scores on the Plant team role scale.
B Stable individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role scales:
Co-ordinator, Implementer, Team Player and Team Worker (Supporter).
5. Openness
B Open individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role scales: Plant
(Innovator), Shaper, Resource Investigator and Monitor Evaluator.
B Conventional individuals tended to have high scores on the following team role scales:
Implementer and Completer Finisher.
These findings suggest that there does appear to be a relationship between an individual’s
behaviour in their team, expressed in team role terms, and their personality attributes. This
lends support to Belbin’s assertion that there is such a link and expresses this clearly and
consistently in terms of the ‘‘Big Five’’ factor model of personality. It is, moreover, broadly in
line with previous research using a different measure of the ‘‘Big Five’’ factors (Broucek and
Randell, 1996; Feltham et al., 2003).

Team role expectations and team role behaviour

While some previous research has explored the relationship between team roles and
personality (see, for example, Dulewicz, 1995; Feltham et al., 2003), the relationship
between other contextual factors and team role behaviour has been largely neglected. This
article looks at three contextual factors, namely, team role expectations, team role autonomy
and team role commitment.
In order to simplify the analysis, factor analysis was carried out on measures of team role
expectations, as summarised in Table II. The largest four factors accounted for 80 per cent of
the variance in results and showed broadly consistent patterns of relationships with both self
and other-assessed measures of team role behaviour. The four dimensions of team role
expectations are described briefly below:

Table II Factor analysis: team role expectations

Principal component factor analysis of the correlation matrix – un-rotated factor loadings (n ¼ 188)
Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4

Team worker (supporter) 0.78 20.45 20.06 0.04

Implementer 0.72 0.21 20.09 20.54
Specialist 0.11 0.81 20.08 0.38
Shaper 0.80 0.10 0.26 20.15
Plant (innovator) 0.70 0.46 0.14 0.02
Team player 0.75 20.42 20.30 0.11
Completer finisher 0.38 0.41 20.76 0.02
Co-ordinator 0.75 20.46 20.07 0.17
Resource investigator 0.72 20.11 0.30 0.32
Monitor evaluator 0.57 0.52 0.30 20.03

Variance 4.4 2.0 1.0 0.6

% variance 0.44 0.20 0.10 0.06

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 1. Overall responsibility. This appears to relate to the overall level of responsibility
associated with a given job, particularly the responsibility for managing or leading others,
and is likely to indicate an individual’s position in their organisational hierarchy. This
ranges from positions that have relatively low levels of overall responsibility, to positions
that have relatively high levels of responsibility, particularly for leading or managing
others.
2. Generalist versus specialist. This appears to relate to the extent to which an individual is
either a generalist, and achieves results through interpersonal relationships at all levels,
or is a specialist, and achieves results through the use of specialist or technical
knowledge and skills, including skills in problem solving.
3. Completer versus investigator. This appears to relate to the extent to which an individual’s
role is that of a completer, with the focus on completing practical details, or that of an
investigator, with the focus on investigating wider possibilities.
4. Implementer versus innovator. This appears to be related to whether an individual’s role is
that of an implementer, with the emphasis on organising and implementing tasks, or with
that of an innovator, where the emphasis on stimulating innovation.
Clear and broadly consistent relationships were found between these four dimensions of
team role expectations and both self and other-assessed team role behaviours. Table III
reports these relationships. Table III(a) looks at the relationships between role expectations
and self-assessed team role behaviours, while Table III(b) looks at the relationships between
expectations and other-assessed team role behaviours. The main conclusions are
summarised below:
1. Overall responsibility
B Individuals with relatively low levels of overall responsibility tend to have lower scores
across the entire range of team roles, particularly the three ‘‘leadership’’ roles, namely,
Co-ordinator, Shaper and Team Player.

Table III Correlation matrices for team role expectations and team roles
Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4

(a) Team role expectations and self-assessed team roles (n ¼ 195)

Team worker (supporter) 0.18 20.15 20.11 20.03
Implementer 0.17 20.07 20.23 20.14
Specialist 0.08 0.40 20.17 0.25
Shaper 0.39 20.05 0.02 0.09
Plant (innovator) 0.24 0.20 20.02 0.15
Team player 0.37 20.17 20.06 20.01
Completer finisher 0.23 20.03 20.48 20.05
Co-ordinator 0.45 20.29 20.10 0.06
Resource investigator 0.20 20.07 0.21 0.19
Monitor evaluator 0.14 0.25 20.09 0.06
(b) Team role expectations and other-assessed team roles (n ¼ 127)
Team worker (supporter) 0.16 20.13 20.15 20.11
Implementer 0.10 20.14 20.29 20.14
Specialist 0.06 0.28 20.16 0.15
Shaper 0.30 20.10 0.00 0.15
Plant (innovator) 0.26 0.11 0.02 0.23
Team player 0.30 20.25 0.02 0.06
Completer finisher 0.16 20.07 20.30 20.09
Co-ordinator 0.37 20.19 20.12 0.02
Resource investigator 0.16 0.03 0.16 0.17
Monitor evaluator 0.19 0.13 20.09 0.14

Notes: factor 1: overall responsibility (low to high); factor 2: generalist versus specialist; factor 3:
completer versus investigator; factor 4: implementer versus innovator

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 B Conversely, individuals with relatively high levels of overall responsibility tend to have
higher scores across the entire range of team roles, although the relationship is
strongest for the three ‘‘leadership’’ roles.
2. Generalist versus specialist
B Individuals playing more generalist roles tend to have higher scores on the more
‘‘people-oriented’’ team roles, namely Co-ordinator, Team Player, Team Worker and
Resource Investigator.
B In contrast, those playing more specialist roles tend to have higher scores on the
Specialist team role, as well as the ‘‘problem-solving’’ roles, namely Plant and Monitor
Evaluator.
3. Completer versus investigator
B Individuals playing completer roles tend to have higher scores on the Completer
Finisher and Implementer team roles.
B Individuals playing investigator roles tend to have higher scores on the Resource
Investigator team role.
4. Implementer versus innovator
B Individuals playing implementer work roles tend to have relatively high scores on the
Implementer team role.
B Individuals playing innovator work roles tend to have relatively high scores on Plant
(Innovator), Resource Investigator, Shaper, Monitor Evaluator and Specialist team roles.

Autonomy, commitment and team role behaviour

Previous research using the ‘‘Big Five’’ model of personality has found that autonomy has a
moderating effect on the relationship between personality and job performance (Barrick and
Mount, 1993).
This research found a direct relationship between autonomy and team role behaviour. In
particular, low scores on autonomy were related to high scores on the Completer Finisher
team role and, to a lesser extent, the Implementer team role. In contrast, high scores on
autonomy were associated with high scores on Shaper, Plant (Innovator), Resource
Investigator and, to a lesser extent, Monitor Evaluator team roles.
High scores on commitment tended to be associated with high scores on most team roles,
with the strongest relationships on the more ‘‘people-oriented’’ team roles (i.e. Co-ordinator,
Team Player, Team Worker and Resource Investigator) and, to a lesser extent, the more ‘‘task
oriented’’ team roles (i.e. Implementer and Completer Finisher).
Table IV shows the observed relationships between autonomy, commitment and team role
behaviour. Table IV(a) looks at the relationship between autonomy, commitment and
self-assessed team role behaviour, while Table IV(b) looks at the relationship between
autonomy, commitment and other-assessed team role behaviour.

Expectations, autonomy, commitment and team roles

It could, of course, be argued that the relationship between contextual factors, namely,
expectations, autonomy and commitment, and team role behaviour may be related to their
common relationship to personality. However, if this were the case, then one would expect to
find strong relationships between such variables and personality variables.
Table V shows the observed relationship between contextual and personality variables.
While these two sets of variables do appear to be related, the degree of relationship is lower
than that between both contextual variables and team role behaviours, and between
personality and team role behaviours. This suggests that contextual and personality
variables are largely independent. These findings thus support the argument that contextual
variables are an important influence on an individual’s team role behaviour, independent of

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 Table IV Correlation matrices for autonomy, commitment and team roles
Autonomy Commitment

(a) Autonomy, commitment and self-assessed team roles (n ¼ 195)

Team worker (supporter) 20.04 0.27
Implementer 20.05 0.23
Specialist 0.05 0.05
Shaper 0.30 0.22
Plant (Innovator) 0.26 0.02
Team player 0.16 0.22
Completer finisher 20.13 0.08
Co-ordinator 0.11 0.33
Resource investigator 0.18 0.16
Monitor evaluator 0.14 20.08
(b) Autonomy, commitment and other-assessed team roles (n ¼ 127)
Team worker (supporter) 20.08 0.27
Implementer 20.34 0.12
Specialist 20.07 20.10
Shaper 0.13 0.10
Plant (innovator) 0.23 0.03
Team player 0.16 0.23
Completer finisher 20.20 0.14
Co-ordinator 0.02 0.33
Resource investigator 0.23 0.15
Monitor evaluator 0.07 0.02

Table V Correlation matrix for self-assessed role expectations, autonomy, commitment

and personality
Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 Autonomy Commitment

I. Extroversion 20.14 20.13 0.20 20.02 0.13 0.07

II. Tender-Mindedness 20.15 20.12 20.04 20.07 20.02 0.21
III. Conscientiousness 20.12 0.01 20.17 20.06 20.09 0.16
IV. Anxiety 0.06 0.02 20.05 0.05 20.19 20.26
V. Openness 20.16 0.00 0.04 0.03 0.07 0.00

Notes: factor 1: overall responsibility (low to high); factor 2. generalist versus specialist; factor 3.
completer versus investigator; factor 4: implementer versus innovator; n ¼ 119

personality. Contextual factors appear to play a part in behaviour associated with all team
roles, although they play a particularly important part in behaviour associated with the
Co-ordinator, Team Player, Shaper and Specialist team roles.

Conclusions
This article has developed the ideas on team role theory contained in an earlier article by one
of the authors, and presented findings to support such ideas, using research instruments
designed to overcome some of the weaknesses identified in the instruments developed by
Belbin. In particular, it has argued that, while team role theory offers us important insights
into the relationship between team composition and team effectiveness, it has two areas of
weakness, namely, its conceptions of team role and personality.
A concept of team role with a significant social dimension has been described. This
recognises the importance of social learning and relates this to the roles that people
habitually play in teams and what is expected of them in such roles, the autonomy provided
by such roles and their commitment to them.
It has also advocated the use of the ‘‘Big Five’’ model of personality, a model that is well
rooted in theory and research, and indicated that adjective checklists can provide useful
ways of measuring these five sets of traits.

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Finally, it has confirmed the view that, when looking at an individual’s team role behaviour,
there should be less focus on the constraining influence of personality and more attention
given to playing learned roles, particularly in relation to leadership and specialist roles within
teams. In consequence, attempts to improve team effectiveness should focus more on
training and development activities, particularly those that address leadership, problem
solving, work planning and interpersonal skills, as well as specialist knowledge and skills
appropriate to the specific team. Moreover, relatively less attention should be focused on the
areas emphasised by Belbin, namely, assessment, selection, placement and guidance.

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Appendix. The research instruments

1. Team role questionnaires

Team role behaviour was assessed using a 110-item questionnaire. This measured an
individual’s behaviour on ten scales covering the nine team roles identified by Belbin, along
with and additional Team Player role. Each scale consisted of 11 items, three concerned with
the individual’s typical contribution to their team, four with the associated behavioural
strengths and four with the associated behavioural weaknesses. All items were scored on a
five-point Likert-type scale according to the frequency with which the individual engaged in
these various behaviours, ranging from ‘‘always or practically always’’ to ‘‘never or just about
never’’. There were two versions of the questionnaire, a self-assessment version, completed
by the individual, and a peer rating version that aggregated the results of others (typically
their line manager, colleagues and members of staff) who worked with them in their actual
team.

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 2. Work orientation questionnaire
This questionnaire was completed by the individual and looked at three sets of factors, apart
from the individual’s personal qualities, that might affect their behaviour in their team at work,
namely:
B Expectations i.e. what others, particularly their line manager, expected of them in their
job. There were 10 scales, corresponding to the 10 team roles mentioned above, with
each scale made up of the three items used in the Team Role questionnaire to
characterise the contribution associated with the specific role, rated on a five-point
Likert-type scale from ‘‘extremely important’’ to extremely unimportant’’.
B Autonomy i.e. the extent to which the individual is in a position to choose how they set
about their job or is constrained by rules, procedures and the like. This consisted of 12
statements rated on a five-point Likert-type scale from ‘‘strongly agree’’ to ‘‘strongly
disagree’’, with six statements scored in one direction and the other six in the opposite
direction.
B Commitment i.e. the extent to which the individual identifies with the aims and practices of
their job, the team and organisation, and displays a positive or negative orientation to it.
This also consisted of 12 statements rated on a five-point Likert-type scale from ‘‘strongly
agree’’ to ‘‘strongly disagree’’, with six statements scored in one direction and the other
six in the opposite direction.

3. 100-adjective checklist – Big Five personality factors

Personality was assessed using a 100-adjective checklist derived from previous research.
This provided measures of the ‘‘Big Five’’ personality factors; 20 adjectives were chosen to
assess each of the five dimensions of personality. Individuals were asked to rate the
accuracy of each term on a seven-point Likert-type scale ranging from ‘‘extremely
inaccurate’’ to ‘‘extremely accurate’’. There were two versions of the checklist, a
self-assessment version, completed by the individual, and a peer rating version that
aggregated the results of others (typically their line manager, colleagues and members of
staff) who worked with them in their actual team.

About the authors

Tony Manning is an Independent Consultant based in Selkirk, UK. He is also a part time
Lecturer in the School of Management and Languages at the Scottish Borders Campus of
Heriot-Watt University, Galashiels, UK. He is the corresponding author and can be contacted
at: tony_manning@talk21.com
Richard Parker is an Independent Consultant based in Islington, London, UK.
Graham Pogson is a Lecturer in the School of Management and Languages at the Scottish
Borders Campus of Heriot-Watt University, Galashiels, UK.

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