Team lead role: responsibilities and 10 key skills
Summary
If you're responsible for guiding a team toward an end goal, you're a team leader. While this role overlaps with project management, team leaders also bring mentorship and coaching to their teams. Depending on your company structure, a team leader's responsibilities may vary. In this article, we cover what a team leader is, how the role differs from a project manager, and 10 skills you can develop to become a great team leader.
How to build a transformational AI strategy from the ground up
The journey of AI adoption is no longer uncharted territory. Supported by research from our Work Innovation Lab in partnership with frontier AI safety and research company, Anthropic, this guide offers a how-to for navigating the journey of AI adoption.
What is a team leader?
A team leader is someone who guides a team toward a specific goal by providing direction, delegating tasks, and mentoring team members. Unlike managers, team leaders typically focus on project outcomes rather than formal people management duties, like performance reviews or hiring.
A team leader provides guidance and instruction to a working group about a project or portfolio of projects. They are responsible for delegating work, overseeing progress toward goals, and coaching team members as needed. Team leads often serve as de facto mentors for their teams, even if they don't hold a managerial title.
What does a team leader do?
A team leader is responsible for a specific body of work, like a project, program, or portfolio of programs.
A team leader's main responsibilities include:
Organizing work
Communicating goals
Connecting work to context
Delegating tasks
Problem solving
Managing project progress
Reporting progress to stakeholders
Coaching to improve team member skill sets
Motivating team members to accomplish their goals
Nurturing team member strengths and identifying areas for improvement
Representing and advocating for the team's needs
What is a team lead's job description?
Team leader vs. project manager
A team leader's skills often overlap with project management skills, and on many teams, one person fills both roles. The key difference lies in their primary focus.
Team leader | Project manager |
|---|---|
Focuses on motivating and supporting team members | Focuses on deliverables and task completion |
Coaches and mentors the team | Tracks timelines and milestones |
Builds team culture and collaboration | Manages scope, budget, and resources |
Emphasizes people and relationships | Emphasizes processes and outcomes |
10 top team leader skills
Regardless of the type of project you're leading, a good team leader can confidently manage and communicate with their team. Here are 10 skills you need to get started:
1. Goal management
One of the most valuable things you can do as a team lead is to answer the question: Why does this work matter? Every project supports a team or company goal, but oftentimes, goals are disconnected from daily work. When team members don't understand which goals their work supports, they're less motivated to do good work.
Good team leaders provide context, so team members understand why their work matters and how their work fits into the larger company vision. With that context, team members can more effectively prioritize tasks and ensure they get their highest-impact work done at the right time.
2. Moving work forward
Once your team understands the goals they're supporting, they also need a clear way to visualize how they'll get there. As the team leader, think of yourself as the captain of the ship: you're responsible for orienting the crew toward your destination and figuring out exactly how you'll get there.
There are three main elements to ensure work moves forward in an effective way:
Clarify metrics. Team members can't know if they're on the right track if they don't have a clear sense of what they're working towards. So before you get started, set SMART goals to define how you'll measure success and create measurable goals.
Track progress. It isn't enough to know where you're going. You also need to know where you are in relation to your goal. Make sure your team members have a clear way to visualize the project timeline and see who's doing what by when.
Communicate updates. As the team lead, it's also your responsibility to monitor progress and share updates with the project team and any relevant stakeholders. The best way to do this is with project status reports, which give your team a clear sense of whether your project is on track, at risk, or off track.
3. Communication
Like any leadership position, team leads need excellent communication skills. This includes communicating with team members about work, updating project stakeholders about progress, and coordinating with any cross-functional partners on behalf of the project team's needs. Notably, communication includes both verbal and nonverbal communication.
Important elements of communication include:
1:1 or face-to-face communication
Effective listening, like active listening
Interpersonal skills like communication take time to develop. If you're getting started, create a communication plan that outlines what gets shared asynchronously in your project management tool versus in team meetings.
Read: Why it’s time to prioritize your emotional intelligence4. Organization
Team leaders are often project managers, but even if you aren't a project manager, you're still responsible for organizing your team's work. As a team leader, you're guiding your team towards an end objective or goal, and organization is a key element of getting there.
Think of organizing information like creating a single source of truth. Your team needs to be able to count on you and trust that you have the information they need.
The best way to set up a great organizational system for your entire team is to use a work management tool like Asana. Asana helps you track work, manage projects, and share progress towards your goals. When everyone understands exactly who's doing what by when, they're empowered to get their best work done.
5. Delegating
The best team leaders know that they can't do everything by themselves. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and that's a key facet of team leadership as well. Delegating is a key part of coaching and mentoring that unblocks your work while giving team members opportunities to try new skill sets.
To delegate effectively, you must first understand each team member's strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Keep these principles in mind:
Match tasks to skills: Assign work based on what team members do well and what they want to learn.
Let go of control: Team members may approach tasks differently than you would, and that's OK.
If you have trouble delegating work, try creating an Eisenhower Matrix. Or when in doubt, follow this easy four-step process:
Identify work that can be delegated.
Clarify urgency and importance so team members can prioritize work.
Provide any required training.
Trust, but verify.
6. Problem-solving
No project goes off without a hitch. That's why team leaders must develop strong critical thinking skills to solve problems and think on their feet. To do this, practice using context to prioritize your most important work and identify which problems need to be solved first.
If you're new to problem-solving, try answering the following questions:
How is the team going to approach the work?
What's most important?
What do they have to focus on?
How will this decision affect the team?
Decision-making tools for agile businesses
In this ebook, learn how to equip employees to make better decisions—so your business can pivot, adapt, and tackle challenges more effectively than your competition.
7. Time management
Team leaders are master time managers; they possess a keen sense of how to prioritize their work. To develop your time management skills, consider implementing effective time management strategies and tools to maximize your productivity throughout the day.
For students or professionals balancing study and work, a study schedule template is a simple way to structure time and stay consistent with learning goals. You can also encourage your team members to explore time management strategies that work best for them.
If you're not sure where to begin, try:
The GTD method, which focuses on cataloguing information in an external tool so you can use your brainpower for high-impact work.
Time blocking, which focuses on grouping similar tasks to work on all at once and scheduling those time blocks in your calendar.
The Pomodoro Technique, which establishes a set of sprints and breaks to help you maximize your productivity and focus.
The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, helps you get 80% of your work done with 20% of effort.
The eat the frog method, which states that in order to get your best work done, you should tackle your biggest task (your frog) at the very beginning of the day.
8. Workload management
As a team leader, you're ultimately responsible for helping your team accomplish its goals. Part of this is making sure work is progressing on track, and no one is getting close to burnout. During team meetings and 1:1s, ask your team members how they're feeling about their workload and if there's anything they need to deprioritize, defer, or delegate.
As the team leader, you should have a sense of what your team members have on their plates, but this becomes harder as your team grows. Use a workload management tool to track what each person is working on, especially if they're juggling multiple projects. When everything is in one place, you can quickly spot imbalances and prevent overwork.
9. Team building
Team leaders aren't just organizational masterminds. You're also responsible for encouraging and motivating your team, so spend time on team building and make sure everyone feels included.
Team building starts with ensuring everyone understands the team goals so you can move together towards the final deliverable, but it doesn't end there. To build an effective team:
Check in weekly or daily, depending on how long the project runs.
Evaluate team performance and cheer on your team members.
Spend some time on team-building games.
Try icebreaker questions to get to know your team better.
10. Mentoring and coaching
A big part of a team leader's role is to provide coaching, training, and mentoring where applicable. Your team members may be new to this type of initiative or have questions about completing a particular task. If you know how to solve their problem, you can provide coaching as needed. If not, direct them to the best person to answer their question.
Even if you're an individual contributor rather than a people manager, as a team leader, you're responsible for supporting and encouraging your project team members. Invest in your leadership skills and build your emotional intelligence so you can support your team members when they need it.
Keep everything organized with project management
You can't do your work effectively if you don't have a way to communicate and share information with your team members. To increase visibility across your team, try project management tools. Give team members the clarity they need to stay in sync, collaborate effectively, and get their best work done. Get started with Asana today to see how you can lead your team more effectively.
Decision-making tools for agile businesses
In this ebook, learn how to equip employees to make better decisions—so your business can pivot, adapt, and tackle challenges more effectively than your competition.
