6 Team Roles to Delegate as a Team Leader

As a team leader, you are swamped with establishing goals, putting a process in place, leading your team members to complete that process, documenting the progress, and more. You are hogging all the work, working too hard, and your trusty team members are ready to give you a hand. It's time to ask yourself,

What function can I ask someone else to do that will help me and develop that person’s abilities?

Here are a number of team roles that you can delegate to team members to ensure smoother, less stressful meetings, projects, and tasks:

Gatekeeper. This team member is in charge of making sure everyone has a chance to speak and that one person doesn’t hog all the airtime.

Timekeeper. It is crucial for productivity and meeting effectiveness to have someone else accountable for helping the team start on time and end on time. Ask them to give the team a warning before the end of each agenda item. When the time is up, the team may decide to:

1. Move toward immediate closure of the discussion
2. “Park” the issue for another time
3. Renegotiate the timetable and continue the discussion (but at least you won’t be trapped and unable to escape!)

Scribe. Rather than having all team members take messy notes on a yellow legal pad, ask someone on the team to keep the team’s “minutes” to remind the team of past agreements and future work. The organized, typed version can be distributed to team members after the meeting.

Recorder. Ask another person (or if on a small team, ask the scribe) to record people’s ideas on an easel chart for all to see. When people’s ideas are recorded, they feel as if they have been heard and the visual learning element can be helpful. Also, by posting the comments, you don’t have to keep repeating the same points.

Process Observer. Make sure the team has a process in place and stays on track to complete that process. When the team or even the team leader gets off track, the Process Observer is in charge of intervening.

Spokesperson. Whenever the team needs to report out to other colleagues, teams, or bosses, consider having someone else (or the entire team) report out key features.

Delegating team roles can feel uncomfortable and even nerve-wracking for some leaders. To put you at ease, have a coaching session to teach team members how they can effectively carry out their role. A little bit of training can save a great amount of time and hassle in the long run. With their new roles, your team members can feel involved, invested, and you will have more time to manage your leadership responsibilities.

Discussion question: 

What roles can you delegate to your team members?

KRISTIN ARNOLD, MBA, CPF, CSP is a high stakes meeting facilitator and professional panel moderator. She’s been facilitating teams of executives and managers in making better decisions and achieving greater results for over 20 years. She is the author of the award-winning book, Boring to Bravo: Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve and Inspire Audiences to Action.

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