# Self-Management **Self-managed Teams** A self-managed team shares the responsibility of planning and executing the work, without the supervision of a manager. Team members take ownership of their workflow, processes, schedules, roles, and more. Team members make commitments to each other, and those commitments, rather than hierarchy, drive the work. **Wait. No hierarchy?** Even without hierarchy, leadership and accountability still exist in self-managed teams. The lack of conventional management doesn’t necessarily turn the teams into free-for-alls. Instead of a traditional management hierarchy authorizing every decision, the teams closest to the work make the call, and are able to move much faster to tackle new opportunities and challenges Self-managed teams often achieve the structure other management styles offer following the principle of hierarchy of roles. **The role of Roles** Our team structure distributes decision-making power among team members, rather than one person (like a manager) having all of the authority. It isn’t so much about empowerment, but about realizing that we already have the power to drive our own work. In summary: our roles do not depend on power, instead, we focus on the decision-making rights of roles.