Team Leader: 10 Key Roles and Responsibilities

Team Leader: 10 Key Roles and Responsibilities

The team leader is responsible for guiding a team towards a specific goal. The number 1 goal of a team leader is to ensure effectiveness within the group in order to achieve the desired goals by providing support, guidance, instruction and direction towards the objectives. 

Here are 10 key roles and responsibilities that every team leader must keep in mind:

Goal setting

Team leaders need to know what are the team's capabilities, strengths and weaknesses, as well as external factors that may affect the team negatively, or even positively, such as opportunities. The next step for the team leader is to understand the company's mission and vision, and then, determine the goals and objectives. This should show us  what the company really wants to achieve, and the direction the team will follow in order to achieve that goal. 

The goals and objectives of the team should be aligned with the overall organisational goals and vision. This ensures everyone is working towards the same goal, and the odds to achieve success are higher. 

Planning and organising

Once the goals are defined, the team leader will create an action plan that outlines the steps needed to follow in order to accomplish the goals and objectives. The team leader will  develop specific strategies in order to achieve the desired objectives. To accomplish the plan effectively, the team leader should organise resources. Organising resources might include assigning tasks, allocating budgets, and ensuring the team has good equipment, necessary materials and complete information. 

Communication

The team leader should communicate the plan, expectations, goals and objectives clearly to their team members, stakeholders and senior management. The key aspect of effective communication that the team leader needs to work on is… conveying information in a clear and concise manner.

In a conflict, or a problem, the team leader should guide his team by addressing conflicts quickly and effectively. This should include different things on how to approach a problem between members, or even with someone´s performance. 

By giving importance to the aspect of communication, this could lift us into a positive team environment, and ensure that the team is on the same page, working effectively towards the same goals, and being a productive and resolutive team.

Team management

Managing effectively a team could lead us to shape a group of people into  a positive and resolutive team. Manage teams effectively could be possible if we…

Strengthen relationship within the team members, is important that the team leader give importance to build strength within the team in order to have a cooperative group. To create a powerful and productive team environment, we need to build trust among team members by promoting teamwork. 

To keep displaying good results and a good performance on our team, is vital to encourage the personal and professional development of each one of the team members. The team leader  should teach and provide enough opportunities for the team members to develop themselves, new skills and keep growing in their careers and self development.

To achieve a positive working place and self development of each team member is important to celebrate success. The team leader should acknowledge the team members performances, achievements and contributions.

Coaching and mentoring

Coaching is about helping team members to develop their skills and achieve their full potential. Coaching and mentoring includes, setting clear expectations to the team members, providing constructive feedback and guidance, setting goals, and providing opportunities for learning and self development.

Team leader needs to control and discuss the progress of the team members' performances. From there, they should provide constructive feedback about their mistakes at work. This is a way of certifying we are on track to achieve smart goals, and address the problems effectively. The feedback needs to be personalised, because each one is performing a specific task, and has a specific role, as well as, each one has their own strengths, weaknesses, and different techniques. Team leader must tailor his approach to each team member's needs in order to give  helpful coaching and mentoring. 

Is also important that the team leader uses active listening on new ideas from the team members. This is the way that he will be seen as someone that is open to feedback, thus, help their relationship to keep growing. With this powerful feedback, and guidance, the team leader encourages the team members to perform in a more motivated way. They know what they need to improve, and what they need to do. Team leaders need to give tailor feedback, and specific steps to perform the task. Thus, motivates them to improve their skills.

Monitoring and evaluation

To achieve success, a team leader needs to monitor the team's progress towards its goals, evaluate the  performance of the team members, and identify areas for the improvements. Within these key responsibilities, we will identify potential issues and make adjustments to the plan and  set up new strategies as we need. We need to ensure that monitoring and evaluation delivers high quality outputs to improve the project performance.

Overall, being a  team leader is a critical role because they ensure that projects or programs are monitored and evaluated effectively, leading to improved decision-making and program outcomes.

Decision-making

Team leader is responsible for making informed and timely decisions that are in the best interests of the team and the organization. As a team leader, you ensure through decision-making that your team members make effective decisions on their tasks that also aligns with the mission and vision,  goals and objectives of the organization. 

Delegation

One important role of the team leader is to delegate tasks and responsibilities to team members based on their skills and expertise, while providing support and guidance as needed. It is fundamental to create training manuals and Sop in business. Delegating tasks to a specific person within the team based on their strengths and skills, is primordial. The team leader is in charge of this and to provide the support and guidance needed to accomplish the specific tasks. We recommend that you create step-by-step process guides and store them in one place for when a new person joins, saving time is an onboarding process. Make them with Uphint, a step-by-step guide creator: it's automatic and free, create your first one now!

Performance management

Manage the team performance by setting performance standards, providing regular feedback, and conducting performance reviews to ensure that team members are meeting expectations and contributing to the team's success.  Is important that the team leader  keeps a control on them, and ensures they are on track and keeping in mind the goals and objectives.

Continuous improvement

Identifying opportunities for self improvements, implementing best practices, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement within the team. Is quite important to encourage the team to keep learning and growing in personal development. They will feel more happy with their work and themselves, and eventually, that will boost their confidence.

The team leader provides guidance and support to the team members in order to achieve their own goals. Team leaders can share their knowledge and experience to the team, providing fruitful feedback and information, as a way to help them pursue professional development opportunities.

Conclusion

A team leader within the team is like the captain of a boat, is the leader of a football team that keeps them winning. Is the one who has unique skills and is a resolutive person. The one that keeps in mind all the time the victory, in this case, the goals and objectives. They manage the pressure effectively, they have the ability to inspire and motivate people and guide them to a common goal through his communicative skills. They have to be able to communicate effectively the goals and objectives to the team, ensuring everyone knows exactly their role and responsibilities. 

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