• Introduction
• Learn about Team Role Profiles
• Stephen Harper
• Stéphane Dion
• Gilles Duceppe
• Jack Layton
• Elizabeth May
• Results for other politicians
• Take your turn
• Get a Team Role Profile

Public Panel Results - After the Debates

Stéphane Dion’s first public Belbin profile early in the campaign showed his strengths and weaknesses distributed fairly evenly across eight of the nine Belbin team roles. This configuration is indicative of not having a definite opinion on him. He lacked “branding”.

A public profile report run later in the campaign revealed a significant shift towards a more definite profile. He was seen as being a strongly creative person (the Plant role) and being a strong Teamworker. He was definitely not seen as a hard driving Shaper (Harper’s strongest role).

His latest profile post the debates has stayed much the same with a few roles emerging as his strengths (the creative Plant, analytical Monitor Evaluator, and caring Teamworker). Of note, the focus in his post debate public profile, if one examines the words chosen to describe him, emphasizes mainly the strengths he has. Very few of the negative descriptors were chosen.

Public Panel Results - September 30, 2008

Stéphane Dion showed the biggest shift in team profile of any of the leaders. In our commentary on his September 12th profile we noted that he had not created a definite picture of his team role strengths or weaknesses in the eyes of the public. His strengths and weaknesses were distributed fairly evenly across eight of the nine Belbin team roles. This configuration is indicative of not having a definite opinion on him. He lacked “branding”. As of September 29th that’s all changed. He is now seen as being a strongly creative person (the Plant role). He is definitely not seen as a hard driving Shaper (Harper’s strongest role) and he is seen as being the strongest Teamworker of any of the leaders. The latest profile is much more definite and may indicate that we think we now know much more about him now. In terms of team roles he has certainly differentiated his profile from that of Harper and in that sense has provided the electorate with a clear alternative.

Public Panel Results - September 12, 2008

An analysis of the public’s perception of Stéphane Dion reveals that he may not have created a definite picture of his team role strengths or weaknesses. The public’s assessment of all the other leaders shows a much more definite understanding of both their strengths and weaknesses in the nine team roles than it does for Dion. The public sees his strengths and weaknesses distributed fairly evenly across the nine roles. This is in strong contrast to how the experts view Dion. They do have as definite an opinion on him as they do of the other leaders.

The team role “picture” in the public’s mind for Dion may represent a personal “branding” challenge for Dion. For the other leaders there are between two and four roles that stick out both in terms of differences in strengths and weaknesses. We often look for weaknesses as a confirmation of a person’s strengths in a role, e.g., if we see the weakness Fussy alongside the positive words for a Completer Finisher (CF), it tends to confirm that this individual indeed does have the characteristics of a CF. 

The one role that does stick out for Dion is that of Plant (PL – creative, innovative, imaginative).  This view is confirmed by our panel of experts. Based on this rating by both the experts and the public, we could expect to see this imaginative aspect of Dion’s leadership style emerge as he grows in his current role as leader of the Liberal Party.

While a somewhat indefinite picture emerged for Dion regarding his distinct team roles, his ratings on many of the attributes in the “people” roles of Coordinator (CO) and Teamworker (TW) were higher than for all of the other leaders. This could be an indication that at this time Dion is seen as having the potential to be a caring, consultative leader.

Expert Panel Results

Stéphane Dion's two top team roles by a wide margin are Shaper and Plant. Meredith Belbin decided to call very creative, imaginative people Plants because in his research on team roles he "planted" highly creative individuals in teams and saw immediate improvements in results. Dion combines this creative capability with the drive of a Shaper. Two other roles that feature in his arsenal are Specialist and Completer Finisher. With this configuration of roles Dion is likely to have a very strong sense of direction. He would like to produce the ideas and put them into operation. He could be very directive and may have trouble working with strong minded colleagues. His most distinguishing feature is likely to be his reluctance to go along with majority thinking. Compared to others, he would find it easy to stick to his position and press it. Ultimately he would be likely to be respected for his independence of view and strength of mind. His overall profile indicates one who leads from the front. This strength, when overdone, could become a weakness. He would be advised to be careful not to run too far ahead of others or he will find no-one behind him. He needs to carefully check out where others stand before he pushes ahead with his agenda.

Our experts see him as having most of the strengths and weaknesses associated with the Completer Finisher role. This could indicate that he may be prone to getting bogged down in the details. Also, one of his weakest roles is that of Coordinator. The Coordinator role contributes broad thinking, strong delegation skills and an ability to clarify goals. The configuration of his strong and weak roles indicates that he is not seen as being very broad minded; rather his strengths rest on his creative side and his drive.