Team Lead & Line Manager Charter

This is the role charter for Team Leads and line managers at TechAbout — the people who manage others day to day. It sets out what the role is for, what it owns, and what good management looks like here. It is written for anyone holding or reporting into a line-management role, and for anyone considering it.

Mandate

A Team Lead exists to get great work done through a healthy, growing team. The role is accountable for both halves of that sentence: the work must ship to a high standard, and the people doing it must be supported, developed, and able to sustain the pace. A Lead who delivers output by burning people out has failed the mandate, and so has a Lead who keeps everyone comfortable while the work stalls. The job is to hold both at once.

Core Responsibilities

• People management. Hold regular 1:1s with every direct report. Give specific, timely feedback — praise in the moment, correct in private. Own performance conversations rather than outsourcing them to a form or to appraisal season.
• Growth. Know each person's strengths and where they want to go next, and create real chances to stretch. Sponsor development in line with our Learning & Development policy.
• Workload and priorities. Set clear priorities, protect focus, and keep the load realistic. Watch for overload and quiet withdrawal before either becomes attrition.
• Coaching and unblocking. Remove obstacles, make the decisions your team is stuck on, and escalate the ones above your level fast. Your job is to clear the road, not to drive every car.
• Culture and policy. Uphold the Code of Conduct and every people policy — consistently, including when it is inconvenient.
• Hiring and staffing input. Contribute to hiring for your team by interviewing, assessing, and onboarding new members well, in line with our Employment Practices & Placements policy.
• First point of escalation. Be the first person your team brings concerns to — about work, workload, conduct, or wellbeing — and act on them.

What Good Management Looks Like Here

Protect your team, give them the credit, and take the blame yourself.

• Take the blame, share the credit. When the team wins, name the people who did it. When something goes wrong, you carry it upward and fix it — you do not name-and-shame downward.
• No favouritism. Assign opportunities, feedback, and consequences by merit and need, not by who you like. People notice the difference immediately.
• Safety to speak up. Make it genuinely safe to disagree, to admit a mistake, and to say "I'm stuck" or "I'm not okay." Reward the honesty; never punish it.
• Presence. Be reachable and predictable. A cancelled 1:1 tells your report they do not matter — so guard those slots.

Decision Rights

A Team Lead owns: day-to-day priorities and task allocation within the team, feedback and coaching, leave approvals within policy, first-line performance management, and input into hiring, ratings, and reward for their reports (see Performance Appraisal and Compensation & Benefits).

A Team Lead escalates: hiring and firing decisions, formal disciplinary action, salary and promotion sign-off, and any grievance that involves them or that they cannot resolve. These go to the People team via hr@techabout.com and follow the Grievance & Complaint Escalation path. When a matter touches conduct, harassment, or the law, a Lead escalates rather than adjudicating alone; specifics are subject to current law and review by qualified local counsel.

Team Lead vs. Project Lead

The two roles are deliberately separate. A Team Lead is an ongoing people manager who owns a person's growth, wellbeing, and career over time. A Project Lead owns a specific piece of work to a deadline and directs people on that project without owning their employment. One person often does both, but the hats are distinct — when they conflict (a project deadline versus a person's health), the people duty of the Team Lead comes first.

How Success Is Measured

• The team ships good work reliably and to standard.
• People grow — they take on more, and some become ready to lead themselves.
• Retention and engagement are healthy; issues surface early, not at exit.
• Feedback and appraisals are timely, fair, and free of surprises.

Who They Work With

• Their direct reports, first and foremost — the relationship the whole role is built around.
• The People team (hr@techabout.com) on hiring, appraisals, reward, grievances, and any formal or sensitive matter.
• Other Team Leads and Project Leads, to align priorities, share people fairly across work, and keep handovers clean.
• Senior leadership, to translate strategy into team-level plans and to escalate what sits above the role's authority.

Boundaries — What This Role Does Not Do

• Does not set company strategy, budgets, or headcount — it staffs and executes within them.
• Does not overrule policy, sign off its own decisions, or handle a grievance in which it is the subject.
• Does not do the whole team's work to avoid delegating, and does not use "the deadline" as a reason to skip 1:1s or ignore wellbeing.
• Does not give legal, HR-formal, or disciplinary rulings alone; those route to the People team, and any legal specifics are subject to current law and qualified local counsel.

While the team is small, one person may currently hold this role alongside another — a Team Lead may also be a Project Lead or carry a functional role. The responsibilities above still apply in full, even when combined in a single person.

Questions? Contact hr@techabout.com.