Individual Contributor VS Team Leader

Recently I am preparing a JD for a senior leader in my team and need to click whether this position is an 'Individual Contributor' or a 'Team Leader'. This led me to think about whether a team leader can be an individual contributor only as my friend who is now the department lead of a medical company, however, her department only has her.

As a team leader, you need to be very independent and motivated especially in current remote working mode. Though you might have a team, you still need to be an individual contributor to guide and monitor your team members to achieve your (team's) KPIs. Since you are a team leader already, your reporting line will be very busy to monitor your performance. You need to have self-discipline to ensure that you are making things happen and successful for your team to support the company's goals.

A team leader can't be an individual contributor only if you have a team no matter it is a small or large team. I saw many team leaders focusing on their own KPIs without guiding and monitoring their team members' performance. When there were some negative outcomes happened, they would push the responsibilities to them. Personally, I think a team leader should take responsibilies for their team members. When they have achievements, the team leader should recognise them instead of taking the credits themselves; when they created troubles, unfortunately, the team leader should stand in front of them and guide them to solve the problems together, not pointing fingers to them or solve the problems for them without guiding them to solve the problems.

This is how I see a team leader should do.

In short, I think a senior leader should be the 'Individual Contributor' as well as a "Team Leader" so that both the team and yourself can grow together.