A team leader or team lead is someone (or in certain cases there may be multiple team leaders) who provides guidance, instruction, direction and leadership to a group of other individuals (the team) for the purpose of achieving a key result or group of aligned results. The team lead reports to a project manager (overseeing several teams). The team leader monitors the quantitative and qualitative result that is to be achieved. The leader works with the team membership.
The team membership may not directly report or answer to the team leader, (who is very often a senior member of the organization but may or may not be a manager) but would be expected to provide support to the team leader and other team members in achieving the team's goals.
A good team leader listens constructively to the membership and to the customer(s) of the results that the team is charged with delivering.
The responsibilities of a team lead vary greatly between organizations, but usually includes some responsibility for team building and ensuring teamwork. The term is used to emphasize the cooperative nature of a team, in contrast to a typical command structure, where the head of a team would be its "commander".
Famous quotes containing the words team and/or leader:
“Romeo. I dreamt a dream tonight.
Mercutio. And so did I.
Romeo. Well, what was yours?
Mercutio. That dreamers often lie.
Romeo. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
Mercutio. O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A Republic! Look in the history of the Earth ... To be the first man—not the Dictator, not the Sylla, but the Washington or the Aristides, the leader in talent and truth—is next to the Divinity!”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)