I will use a couple of terms here: (1) “Team Lead” and (2) “[Specific Function]” Lead, like “Training Program Lead.” When a group grows past 8-10 people, it is easy to begin losing that intimate, small team feel. People start feeling lost in a crowd—or worse, that they can hide. When my sales team grew to 15 direct reports, well past my ability to give each person the amount of attention they deserved, I divided the team into three sub- teams of 5 people. Each sub-team then selected their own “team lead,” like a squad leader, who would best support them in their personal sales success. These team leads were not managers but salespeople with extra responsibilities, there to ensure their sub-team functioned smoothly. They were my miniCEOs that took over my daily and (to me) lower-value tasks like compensation reports (which were high-value to them, because they were learning and developing). While I often didn’t have people on my team for more than 8 months (because we were growing so fast, and I kept promoting people), I would recommend you make team lead roles rotating positions, say every three-to-six months, so different people can develop and practice leadership skills. Creating Sub-Teams Without Single Team Leads Another way to create self-managing teams—rather than having any sort of team leads at all—is to spread responsibilities across the team by creating functional leads: “Goals Setting Lead,” “New Hires Lead,” “Education Lead,” “Coaching System Lead,” “Recruiting Lead,” etc. You can rotate these roles every few months. Part of the responsibilities of an outgoing Lead is always to train the incoming Lead. A functional lead doesn’t have to be the one doing all the work. They are only responsible for it getting done, whether or not they do it. A “Research Lead” could be responsible for managing an outsourced firm that is doing the actual research. A “Sales Hiring Lead” could be responsible for organizing the hiring process and making sure the interviews get done, without