The Final Stretch...

Viewing Barack Obama and John McCain through a Belbin Team Role lens continues to provide interesting information as we follow their fortunes on the campaign trail.
 
John McCain is the feisty fighter in the closing weeks of this presidential race. In terms of his Belbin profile, he is still behaving in a manner that is consistent with the combination of his two strongest roles, Shaper and Resource Investigator. His body language and manner of addressing Barack Obama in the debates tended to be attacking and his behavior on the campaign trail is in keeping with this profile. The detailed report in this website on him showing the words the public observers are choosing reveals interesting information. Two of his highest ranked words are impulsive and erratic. Both of these words are associated with the Resource Investigator role and indicative of weaknesses that need to be managed (there are positive and negative aspects to all the nine Belbin team roles).

Obama’s handling of the debates in particular showed a strong contrast in his style versus McCain’s. His behavior was in keeping with the more balanced “portfolio” of roles shown in his Belbin profile. The most highly ranked words or phrases as chosen by the public for Obama are: calm and confident, broad in outlook (both of these phrases are associated with the Belbin Coordinator role), persuasive, adaptable, clever and analytical.

There have clearly been several factors that have adversely affected McCain’s chances of election. The electorate’s identification of him with George Bush and the financial meltdown are widely recognized as having negatively impacted his campaign.

However, looking at the two campaigns it is interesting to speculate on how much the candidates’ Belbin team roles, and their management of those roles, have caused the trends that are now emerging that show Obama gaining ground over McCain.