The department lead role feels poorly defined. Team leaders are still carrying most of the delivery pressure, people management, prioritization conversations, and stakeholder updates. Instead of shielding teams or helping resolve conflicts, the role sometimes feels like an added reporting layer between directors and the people actually doing the work.
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@hn spot on.
TL= Puts out fires by leaning on the SME's and acting as a therapist and mentor during 1V1. They sit in a lot pointless meetings and generally feel our pain post E.R. Most good TLs though are jumping ship to other non TL roles or leaving because of how d!cked up everything is now.
DL= Puts out fires on a department level. Hears the complaints from 2-3 other TLs, has to carry out the d-mb AF unrealistic marching orders passed down by the director/gp who skip around the office building in a suit jacket hoping we look at and notice how important they think they are. The DL has to balance keeping the yes man GP happy and all the people below him/her happy. A difficult job considering how out of touch the GPs are. The DL tries to fix the broken items that the TLs have brought to them, but are met with the wall of red tape from gp's because anything being fixed might actually dip into the gps bonus $. So most things get shelved or kicked down the road.
Summary: Any DL or TL who is solid and sticks up for their people will be rotated out in less than 2yrs or be forced to quit. If your team or dept love your TL or DL, assume there are plans to have them taken away from you, Or your area is about to be reorganized into chaotic pile of sh!t. The GPs/directors here are insecure, low iq pr!cks who couldn't put together a 50 piece puzzle without going to a level 10 in the dept to do it for them.
OP - you are generalizing. In my department, it’s the exact opposite. My leader (team leader) is pushing papers while most of the difficult decisions and discussions are handled by the department leader (his leader). If the department leader has 5 or more direct reports, I can imagine it’s not an easy role. Same might be true for a team leader with 5 or more direct reports.
What's the diff between a team leader, dept leader and director? I'm honestly curious
@OP, tons of roles are poorly defined. Also I see most Team leaders using in a conference room working or in meetings all day long. Not really present for their team.
@OP in what division?