A senior executive attending a Belbin workshop rediscovered her ambition and devised a personal development strategy to realise it.

Objectives

Develop awareness of individual’s working and leadership styles via a five-day leadership programme

Outcomes

Greater understanding of working and leadership style
Renewed focus on goals
Self-development strategy for better alignment of individual’s preferred styles with the behaviours others see

Introduction

Janice, a senior executive for a global development agency, attended a five-day leadership workshop run by Philip Merry, Belbin Singapore. The workshop focused specifically on developing personal styles when leading others in a team, using Belbin reports and feedback, games and self-reflection.

Challenge

Janice had joined the agency full of ambition and drive to improve the quality of water in rural Africa. At this time, she had had many good ideas about how to achieve her goals, but felt she had since lost touch with her original objectives.

Solution

By understanding the Belbin methodology, and applying this understanding to her own Belbin Individual report, Janice was able to identify discrepancies between her own preferred working styles, and the contributions that her team observed.

She was able to explain these discrepancies with reference to her own career path and to develop a strategy to align the two, in order to pursue her long-term goals.

“I realise how far I have come from my original dream. So please say thank you to Dr Meredith and let him know that when I go back to work on Monday, my colleagues will get to see more of the creative drive which I had when I first joined the organisation. Dr Meredith understands me; my colleagues don’t.” - Janice

Process

Prior to the workshop, Janice completed the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory (which takes around 15-20 minutes to complete), exploring her own ideas of her contributions to a team. Then she asked her agency colleagues to complete Observer Assessments (taking around 5 minutes each), to give their views of her behavioural styles at work.

The two inputs were collated in the Belbin Individual report, which provided Janice with an in-depth analysis of her working styles and comparison of self and observer views.

Results

Janice identified three preferred Team Roles of Shaper, Plant and Monitor Evaluator. However, she was disappointed to see that her top Team Roles according to her colleagues were Teamworker, Implementer and Completer Finisher.

Initially, Janice struggled to understand the divergences. During the course of the workshop, programme leaders, Philip and Normala were able to clarify.

On reflection Janice realised that she had lost touch with her true self. She stated that, in order to progress within the organisation, she had ‘slipped into a supportive role’. For example, during conferences, she would take on the detailed paperwork and catering arrangements, and routinely offered a sympathetic ear to anyone in need.

Janice realised that, in assuming roles which didn’t come naturally to her, she had lost sight of her initial objectives. She resolved on a personal development strategy allowing her to better articulate and play to her strengths at work, in pursuit of her goals.