I was once asked how Belbin Team Roles aid in the development of Psychological Safety. It was an interesting question and as I reflected on it, I realized that understanding and leveraging ‘Belbin Team Roles’ is a perfect way to build Psychological Safety.

 So What is Psychological Safety? As per Amy Edmondson Psychological Safety is “A belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking”

 When there is Psychological Safety people feel safe and are able to be more creative, solve problems, challenge the status quo, feel included and collaborate better.

Why is Psychological Safety so important at workplace?

 1.    When individuals aren’t comfortable sharing their thoughts on projects that have failed, the organization isn’t prepared to embrace failure. Moreover, when organizations aren’t committed, they have missed out on the opportunity to tap the potential of their talent.

 2.    In order to generate ideas that have a real influence, individuals must feel secure speaking out and be allowed to disagree if they believe something is wrong.

3.    Finally, it implies that we can welcome disagreements while knowing that we have each other’s back.

If I have to share an analogy, it’s like a ‘Safety Net’. We all use Safety Net for different purposes and it acts as a protection system to decrease the possibility of any injury or damage. However, this is external right? Similarly, Psychological Safety is internal. Here it’s all about feelings, emotions, trust, support, collaboration, accepting differences, and making the environment more inclusive. 

So, What is Belbin Team Role?

Dr Meredith Belbin defines a team role as: “A tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way.”

Understanding the Belbin Team Roles enable leaders to discover, analyze and appreciate their strengths through self-discovery via reflection and feedback from others. Belbin also equips leaders with the ability to understand their team members and the ‘How’ of collaboration.

How can leaders build Psychological Safety using Belbin?

 Psychological Safety is created when the person leading the team understands each team member’s strengths by understanding their team roles. The leader then leverages the strength when allocating assignments and where the team member lacks specific strength, collaborates with someone else on the team who has that strength to provide support to the team member.  This way, the leader or manager is neither condemning the individual for not handling the assignment or project well nor are they excluding the person from carrying out an important project, thereby creating an inclusive and safe atmosphere for everyone to learn from each other.