To Quad or Not to Squad?

Have you noticed something peculiar creeping into the corporate world? A proliferation of titles that sound less like professional roles and more like something you might overhear at the gym or a tactical training facility. This linguistic drift—from "teams" to "squads" and from "leaders" to "tribe leads"—is both amusing and revealing about the modern workplace.

Take the "squad leader," for instance. It’s a title seemingly plucked from the pages of a military manual. Squads used to be something you'd find on a rugby field or perhaps in a war zone. But in corporate parlance, a squad leader typically oversees a small group of employees within a larger "tribe." Tribes themselves report to "agile coaches" or, if the jargon really gets out of hand, "scrum masters." It’s worth pausing to appreciate the evolution: we’ve gone from simply calling people "managers" to layering in terminology that evokes primitive human organization or pseudo-athletic endeavors.

This is, of course, all part of the agile transformation movement, a methodology that promised to "disrupt" and "innovate" but often seems to do little more than replace existing inefficiencies with shiny new ones. When the agile evangelists fail to fix anything meaningful, the next step in the corporate choreography is often predictable: hire a management consultancy like McKinsey, BCG, or another of their ilk. These firms will charge handsomely to come up with the next baffling lexicon of roles that add complexity while solving nothing. When you hear the word "tribe," you can safely assume that somewhere in the wings, a consultant is sharpening their PowerPoint slides and eyeing your budget.

If you notice this transformation taking root in your organization, it’s a good time to start preparing. When management becomes fixated on inventing trendy new titles and reshuffling the org chart, rather than addressing core challenges, it’s often a red flag signaling a corporate midlife crisis. As with any crisis, the outcome may involve joining the alumni network of your current employer sooner than expected. In fact, the rise of such buzzworthy titles often coincides with a company's decline, leaving employees to dust off their resumes and draft the inevitable LinkedIn update: "After X years, I’m exploring new opportunities"—or perhaps launching a one-person consultancy of their own.

Comparable Job Titles

The creativity in corporate titles doesn’t stop at squads and tribes. Here are some other examples:

• Chapter Lead: A specialist overseeing expertise within a specific field (e.g., developers in a "backend chapter").
• Guild Lead: Oversees cross-functional collaboration across teams or tribes, often centered around shared interests or expertise.
• Pod Leader: Similar to Squad Lead but with an emphasis on smaller, independent teams.
• Crew Captain: Informal but conveys leadership within a tight-knit group.
• Agile Coach: Focused on guiding teams in Agile methodologies.
• Stream Owner: Emphasizes ownership of a particular workflow or deliverable.
• Product Owner: Responsible for maximizing the value of the product in Agile development.
• Huddle Lead: Indicates leadership within quick, iterative team check-ins or short-term goals.
• Team Navigator: A trendy alternative to traditional team manager, emphasizing guidance over control.
• Community Manager: Oversees and cultivates collaboration among members within an organization.
• Mission Lead: Suggests leadership in achieving a specific strategic goal or outcome.
• Innovation Catalyst: Someone driving innovation within a specific team or organization.
• Program Shepherd: Reflects a guiding role within a program, often seen in startups or tech environments.
• Agile Delivery Manager: Focuses on managing the delivery of Agile projects.
• Growth Hacker Lead: Popular in marketing and product teams, focused on growth strategies.

When Did These Titles Become Fashionable?

These titles began gaining traction in the mid-2010s with the rise of Agile methodologies and Spotify's organizational model. Spotify’s "Tribes and Squads" model (introduced around 2012) popularized terms like "Squad Lead" and "Tribe Lead," emphasizing cross-functional collaboration and decentralized leadership. The tech industry’s shift to more flat, team-driven structures in companies like Google, Spotify, and Netflix further fueled this trend.

Where Did They Originate?

• Agile and Scrum Frameworks: Roles like "Product Owner" and "Scrum Master" inspired many of these new titles, which were later adapted for broader leadership purposes.
• Spotify: Its model, outlined in the widely referenced 2012 "Scaling Agile at Spotify" video and whitepaper, directly introduced the terms "Squads," "Tribes," "Chapters," and "Guilds."
• Gaming Culture: Terms like "Guild" and "Pod" draw inspiration from multiplayer gaming, where collaboration and role specialization are crucial.
• Startups and Tech Companies: These environments sought to differentiate themselves from traditional corporate titles, favoring more collaborative, human-centered naming conventions.

Why Are They Fashionable?

• Modern Leadership Styles: Titles like "Squad Lead" suggest guidance and collaboration rather than top-down management.
• Flat Hierarchies: These roles resonate in organizations that value empowerment and decentralized decision-making.
• Agile and Flexibility: Emphasizing agility and adaptability over rigid, traditional structures.
• Employer Branding: Trendy titles help tech companies and startups appear innovative, forward-thinking, and appealing to younger talent.
• Cultural Relevance: Drawing from gaming, sports, and Agile, these titles resonate with Millennial and Gen Z workers who value meaning and community in the workplace.

A Brief History of Titles

Corporate titles have long reflected the zeitgeist of their time. In the 1980s and 1990s, the rise of Silicon Valley gave us tech-centric roles like "Chief Information Officer" (CIO) and "Webmaster." These were seen as modern and innovative at the time, though many of them now sound charmingly dated. In the early 2000s, the dot-com bubble brought a wave of creativity (or absurdity) with titles like "Chief Evangelist," popularized by companies such as Apple and Google. The intent was to convey a sense of passion and missionary zeal for technology—although the term’s religious overtones sometimes caused bemusement.

By the 2010s, the language of startups began to dominate. Enter the "growth hacker," a role focused on scrappy, data-driven marketing techniques. The term "ninja" also appeared around this time, applied liberally to everything from coding to social media. It suggested expertise and agility but began to fade as professionals realized that "ninja" was not particularly descriptive on a LinkedIn profile. Similarly, titles like "Chief Happiness Officer" briefly gained traction as companies sought to emphasize employee well-being—a noble goal, though one that often led to skepticism about whether happiness could really be managed through a job title.

The lifespan of these titles is often short. They emerge as companies attempt to differentiate themselves, gain buzz, or reflect cultural trends, but they often disappear just as quickly when they are deemed gimmicky or when companies pivot to the next big thing. For instance, while "growth hacker" was the darling of the startup world a decade ago, today’s professionals are more likely to be labeled "Chief Growth Officer" or simply "VP of Marketing."

The Current Crop

Titles like these serve a dual purpose: they attempt to attract talent by suggesting the company is modern and forward-thinking, and they allow employees to feel as if their work has been elevated beyond the mundane. After all, who wouldn’t prefer to be a "chief storyteller" instead of a marketing director? But the danger lies in the disconnect between title inflation and actual impact. A ninja still has to meet KPIs, and a squad leader still reports to someone further up the chain, who will eventually answer to the CFO—a title that, mercifully, has remained immune to the trend.

Of course, some might argue that there’s no harm in playful titles. And yet, when every manager becomes a coach, every team becomes a squad, and every project becomes a journey, one has to wonder: how much time is being wasted on rebranding the same old bureaucracy rather than addressing the root problems?

So, the next time someone invites you to a tribe meeting or assigns you to a squad, take a moment to assess the situation. Is this genuine innovation, or is it just another layer of unnecessary jargon? And if your new title is something like "Agility Overlord" or "Chief Transformation Wizard," start polishing your CV.