Back in the day, forum staff teams were often split into groups like Reviews, Services, Graphics, and Community - each with its own team leader. But lately, that structure seems to have faded away.

 

Do you think dedicated team leaders still have a place in modern forums? Or has the role become unnecessary as forums evolve? Share your thoughts and experiences!

I don’t think staff team leaders are necessarily a thing of the past, but I do think their role has evolved. In the early days of forums, having a clear hierarchy made sense. Admins at the top, moderators handling day-to-day tasks, and team leaders bridging the gap. But with modern communities, especially smaller or more tight-knit ones, the structure can be more fluid.

 

A lot depends on the size and complexity of the forum. If you’ve got a large, active community, having team leaders can help keep things organized, prevent burnout, and make sure issues are addressed efficiently. But in a smaller forum, adding another layer of leadership might just slow things down.

 

I’d say it really comes down to how responsibilities are shared and whether a team leader actually adds value. If they’re just there for the title and not making things run smoother, then yeah, maybe they are becoming a thing of the past. But if they’re keeping things structured and making the staff’s job easier, then I’d argue they’re still very much relevant.

I think team leaders do play an important role on some communities. It helps the admins keep the site running smoothly while other staff can make sure each respective team is running smoothly. I'm a team leader assistant on Forum Promotion, and both I and the team leader on the package team equally work together to improve our team and to ensure things are running as smooth as possible.

I don't think team leaders are a thing of the past as it helps a community owner delegate tasks to another team lead. Which enables the owner to focus on other task while the team lead focuses on their own area. I'd say having team leaders is beneficial if your forum has a lot of offerings, such as, graphics, posting packages and more.

 

Delegating a team leader strictly for marketing is also a good idea, it helps your forum at the same time too. It's best to bring on team leads that specialize in certain areas,

My first forum had team leaders on it. Don't know that I've had team leaders since then.

I think the need for team leaders is in the past not necessarily the idea of team leaders. I would believe the invention of team leaders into the staff structure was a response to the workload each team had along with he size of the staff team for each group. Their absence would also be a response to this as well with the workload decreasing along with the number of team members decreasing would demonstrate the administrator(s) could do the work of a team leader now when before it was too much for them to handle so it was delegated to a team leader that was hired.

A lot depends on the size and complexity of the forum. If you’ve got a large, active community, having team leaders can help keep things organized, prevent burnout, and make sure issues are addressed efficiently. But in a smaller forum, adding another layer of leadership might just slow things down.

This!

 

For my own site, I only just recently promoted someone to a Team Lead position. I only did it because it started to get too hectic for me to just deal with everything like hiring, managing roles by myself. Especially now that I'm in school.