DiSC vs Belbin Team Roles: which to use with your team

DiSC and Belbin® Team Roles are both used to help teams work better together. If you are planning a team day, you may be looking at the two side by side. They describe different things, so the right choice depends on what you would like your team to understand about itself.

DiSC and Belbin answer different questions. DiSC describes how each person prefers to behave and communicate. Belbin Team Roles describe the contribution each person tends to make in a team, using nine clusters of behaviour. Choose DiSC to improve everyday communication and Belbin to look at who contributes what in a team.

Inner Leader is a UK leadership and team development consultancy and an Everything DiSC Authorised Partner (Everything DiSC is published by Wiley). We deliver DiSC, so we have an interest in this comparison. We do not sell or deliver Belbin. Everything this article says about Belbin comes from belbin.com, which we checked on 14 November 2026.

What does DiSC describe?

Everything DiSC describes four behavioural styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. Wiley, its publisher, describes it as a personal development learning experience that measures a person's preferences and tendencies. Each person completes an online assessment in fifteen to twenty minutes and receives their own profile.

The question DiSC answers is how people prefer to behave and communicate. One person likes to get to the point quickly and another likes time to think. One wants the detail and another wants the headline. In a team session, people learn their own style and their colleagues' styles, and they practise adapting to each other. Our guide to the four DiSC personality types describes each style.

What do Belbin Team Roles describe?

Belbin Team Roles are nine clusters of behaviour, which Belbin says are proven to boost team performance. They come from research led by Dr Meredith Belbin at Henley Management College in the 1970s, which studied international management teams over nine years. Belbin says the research found that a team's success depended more on behaviour than on factors such as intellect.

The nine Team Roles are:

• Resource Investigator
• Teamworker
• Co-ordinator
• Plant
• Monitor Evaluator
• Specialist
• Shaper
• Implementer
• Completer Finisher

Belbin says each role has strengths and what it calls allowable weaknesses, which are the other side of those strengths. Most people have two or three roles they are most comfortable with, and a team does not need nine people to cover all nine. You can read the description of each role on Belbin's Team Roles page.

To find their Team Roles, a person completes the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory and asks colleagues to complete a shorter questionnaire called an Observer Assessment. Belbin recommends inviting six observers. The results go into a Belbin Individual report. A Belbin Team report brings the individual results together and shows where there may be gaps or overlaps.

How do DiSC and Belbin compare side by side?

Do the four DiSC styles map to the nine Belbin Team Roles?

No. The four DiSC styles do not map one to one onto the nine Team Roles. The two models were built separately and they describe different things, so we would not try to convert a DiSC style into a Team Role or the other way round.

There is one more difference to know about. A DiSC profile is based on a person's own answers. A Belbin Individual report can also include the views of colleagues, and Belbin describes Team Roles as a snapshot of a person's behaviour at work at a certain time.

Can you use DiSC and Belbin together?

Yes. DiSC and Belbin answer different questions, so a team can use both. DiSC gives people a way to talk about how they prefer to communicate. Belbin gives them a way to talk about who contributes what.

Which should you choose for a team day?

Start with the question you would like the day to answer.

• Choose DiSC if you would like people to understand each other's styles and communicate more easily, for example in a new team or a team where styles clash.
• Choose Belbin if you would like to look at who contributes what in the team and where the gaps and overlaps are.
• If the team works closely with other teams, use whichever one the rest of your organisation already knows.

If DiSC is the right fit, our DiSC team workshop page explains how a session runs. Our Everything DiSC training runs in person anywhere in the UK or virtually, from a three-hour virtual session to a full day in person, for anything from one leader to a team of 14. The delivery of a half-day virtual session starts from £2,750 +VAT, not including DiSC profiles. Everything DiSC comes in several versions, and our guide to which Everything DiSC profile to choose explains them.

If Belbin is the right fit, belbin.com explains its reports and how to get in touch. We have also compared DiSC with Myers-Briggs and DiSC with Insights Discovery.

Questions people ask about DiSC and Belbin

Is Belbin a personality test?

No. Belbin says it measures behaviour and does not measure personality, and that its Self-Perception Inventory does not have psychometric properties. Belbin describes Team Roles as clusters of behaviour. It says personality stays relatively fixed while behaviour can change with a person's job role, colleagues and environment, so Team Roles can change over time.

What is the main difference between DiSC and Belbin?

The main difference is the question each one answers. DiSC describes how a person prefers to behave and communicate, using four styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. Belbin describes the contribution a person tends to make in a team, using nine Team Roles. DiSC is published by Wiley and Belbin Team Roles by Belbin.

Which is better for a new team, DiSC or Belbin?

For a new team, choose DiSC if the first need is for people to understand how each colleague prefers to communicate, and choose Belbin if the first need is to see which contributions the team has and where the gaps are. Inner Leader delivers Everything DiSC and has used it with a new team of 34 people from 17 countries. Our case study of that team tells the story.

Which is better for a team in conflict, DiSC or Belbin?

DiSC and Belbin look at a team in conflict from different directions, so neither is the better choice for every team. DiSC helps people see that a colleague who frustrates them often just has a different style. Belbin offers a Working Relationship report, which Belbin says identifies the main differences in how two people tend to behave.