Team Leader | Job Description, Role & Responsibilities
Table of Contents
ShowWhat are the 3 most important roles of a leader?
The three most important roles of a leader are as an organizer, monitor, and communicator. The team leader uses these roles throughout the entire work process and guides team members from the first to the last step of a project.
What is a good team leader?
A good team leader is open, approachable, organized, good at communication, and able to take responsibility and share success. When team members see that a leader is competent, working alongside them, and being fair, they will feel satisfied and work well.
What are the duties and responsibilities of a team leader?
A team leader has a number of organizational, monitoring, and communication duties and responsibilities. They have to write up plans, delegate tasks, provide feedback, work through problems, and listen to their team members.
Table of Contents
ShowSo, what is a team leader? A team leader is an individual who directs, instructs, and guides a group of people who are working together as a team. According to this definition, a team leader needs to be able to communicate effectively, monitor the work of others, and solve any problems that might arise during a project. The team leader has a number of important roles, meaning they need to ensure necessary information reaches all members of the team, remove obstacles to productivity, motivate team members, and provide support to the team.
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A team leader's job description shows how the leader helps team members achieve their goals and contribute to an organization's growth. Team leaders inspire others and foster open and constructive communication in the organization in which they work. A leader is not a boss. This means that the team works with the leader, rather than for them. The job description will also include some hard skills, such as creating plans, setting deadlines, and delegating tasks.
There are some requirements and skills which are usually expected to become a team leader:
- A high school diploma
- At least two years of job experience
- Communication and negotiating skills
- The ability to use a computer
- Organizational skills
Those looking to pursue a career path in team leadership should foster optimism, competence, warmth, and planning and organizational skills in themselves. Team leaders also need to have certain qualities. A team leader needs to want to surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are and create the strongest team possible. They should work alongside others and foster the growth of others. They also need to be lifelong learners and foster emotional intelligence.
Team Leader Role
Team leaders have to be versatile and fulfill a number of different roles. These include organizational, monitoring, and communication roles.
Organizationally, team leaders are in charge of developing team plans and providing training. They play a key role in ensuring that the team members are given what they need to succeed from the get-go, which prevents problems down the line.
The team leader also plays a monitoring role. While work is underway, the team leader should make sure everything is going smoothly and that team members are satisfied with how the project is going. When they notice a challenge or something that isn't working right, they should address the issue right away. They should also keep track of the team's work in progress reports. These reports update the company on the team's progress. Versatility is key when monitoring a project. Adapting to problems and new challenges is extremely important.
Additionally, team leaders need to take on a number of communication roles in order to ensure project success. They need to provide clear, easy-to-understand instructions and listen to team member feedback to address issues as soon as they arise. Team leaders also serve as an intermediary between higher-ups and team members.
The team leader's roles don't end there. Team leaders are often mentors. They take team members under their wing and develop their talents. They also play conflict management roles and are expected to regulate and prevent disagreements between team members. All the various roles of a team leader are crucial for ensuring a project is successful. Difficulties in organization, monitoring, or communication can hurt an organization's ability to meet its goals and prosper. Therefore, a team leader is a valuable asset for an organization.
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What does a team leader do exactly? There are many different team leader responsibilities. The following examples review a number of important ones:
- Delegation: delegation means assigning the right tasks to the right people. Team members should be given tasks that allow them to grow their careers and succeed. For example, if someone is very extroverted, they should be assigned a task that involves others, such as communicating with customers. If someone is very conscientious, they could be assigned work that requires determination and attention to detail, such as writing up documents.
- Open Communication: team leaders need to not only communicate their own ideas but also listen to the ideas of others. Often, team members doing the work themselves can see problems before a team leader does. If a team leader is open to feedback, these issues can be solved quickly and team members will feel satisfied that their voice is being heard.
- Feedback and Rewards: Similarly, team leaders should provide open and honest feedback. When they see someone working well, they should reward that person so that the person knows that their contribution is valued. Rewards can be as simple as an email or praise at a meeting.
- Taking responsibility and sharing success: it is important that team leaders be able to admit when they have made a mistake. Although team members will almost always know when a team leader has blundered, if the team leader is honest and open about the mistake and offers a solution, team members are much more likely to continue feeling motivated and satisfied with the jobs. Likewise, team leaders should remember that it is the team members' work that ensures a project's success. Team leaders should acknowledge the contributions of others and avoid taking responsibility for work that they did not do.
Being a team leader is not an easy task. It requires a wide range of skills and the willingness to take on a lot of responsibility. However, a good team leader is a crucial element for an organization's success. A leader is involved in every step of a project, starting with its planning and finishing with providing honest feedback and rewards after a job well done.
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A team leader is an individual who directs, guides, and instructs members of a team. The team leader is responsible for planning, organization, monitoring, and communication work. They are responsible for establishing meeting times, managing day-to-day operations, and keeping members on track. They ensure that and organization's goals are met.
There are a number of qualities and skills which are useful to team leaders. These include openness and honesty, optimism, good organizational skills, and strong communication skills. Team leaders are also expected to have a number of hard skills such as delegating tasks, setting deadlines, and writing reports. Team leaders take on various responsibilities for the different roles they play to ensure their team's success. These responsibilities include making plans, delegating tasks, listening to team members' feedback, creating reports, problem-solving, conflict mediation, and providing team members with advice and rewards.
All the different facets of team leadership are crucial to an organization's success. The team leadership position requires versatility and hard work.
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Video Transcript
Team Leader
A team leader is someone who provides direction, instructions and guidance to a group of individuals, who can also be known as a team, for the purpose of achieving a certain goal. An effective leader will know her team members' strengths, weaknesses and motivations.
Roles
Team leaders serve various roles in an organization. Their job is to get tasks done by using all of the resources available to them, including other employees or team members. Below is a list of some important roles a team leader must often take on:
- Develop a strategy the team will use to reach its goal
- Provide any training that team members need
- Communicate clear instructions to team members
- Listen to team members' feedback
- Monitor team members' participation to ensure the training they are being provided is being put into use, and also to see if any additional training is needed
- Manage the flow of day-to-day operations
- Create reports to update the company on the team's progress
- Distribute reports to the appropriate personnel
Responsibilities
A team leader is responsible for guiding a group of employees as they complete a project. They are responsible for developing and implementing a timeline their team will use to reach its end goal. Some of the ways team leaders ensure they reach their goals is by delegating tasks to their members, including themselves.
Team leaders are generally responsible for the flow of day-to-day operations. They establish meeting times and an agenda for their members. In these meetings, the team leader will report team activities against the program plan or schedule. It is extremely important that the team leaders keep their members focused and on track. Oftentimes, team leaders will report their teams' progress to a manager or higher-up member of staff just to assure the organization's leaders that they are on track.
Lesson Summary
A team leader is someone who provides direction, instructions and guidance to a group of individuals, who can also be known as a team, for the purpose of achieving a certain goal. Team leaders serve various roles in an organization. They:
- Develop strategies
- Provide training
- Communicate with team members
- Monitor team members
- Manage operations
- Create and distribute reports
Team leaders are also responsible for guiding a group of employees as they complete a project.
Learning Outcome
Once you are done with this lesson you should be able to define and outline the roles and responsibilities of a team leader.
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