--- title: "Assigning or removing a member from a role" description: "Add or remove the people who fill a role in Talkspirit, and understand what an assignment also grants: circle membership and decision-maker rights." category: structure-governance section: roles-and-assignments tags: [permissions] type: Tutorial lastUpdated: 2026-08-05 locale: en canonical: https://support.talkspirit.com/en/structure-governance/how-to-assign-or-remove-a-member-from-a-role --- # Assigning or removing a member from a role ## Assigning or removing a member from a role You assign and remove the people who fill a role from the role's own page, in the **Members** list. A role can be filled by several people at once, and there is no limit on how many. One thing to know before you start, because nothing on screen says it: assigning someone to a role also makes them a **decision maker** of the circle that contains it. That is the permission that lets them create roles and open proposals in that circle. It is on by default, and the assignment form gives you no way to turn it off. ## What you need Open a role and look for the **Add member** button under its Members list. If it is there, you can assign; if the list has no button and no menus, you cannot. In the interface, the button appears when you are an administrator, when you hold an assigner role in the circle that contains this role, when you are an admin of that circle, or when your organisation allows all members to assign roles. Two starting states are more open than you might expect. A circle that has no circle admin yet can be managed by any of its members, and a circle with no members at all can be managed by anyone in the organisation. This is deliberate, so that a new organisation chart can be built at all, but it means the first circles you create are not protected until someone is made their admin. If your organisation has renamed circles or roles, you will see your own words in place of the labels below. ## Assign a member to a role 1. Open the role page. 2. Under **Members**, click **Add member**. A dialog headed **Manage members on** the role's name opens. 3. Start typing a name in the search box. 4. Click the person in the results list. They are assigned straight away, with no separate confirmation, and their name moves into the **Assigned members** list below. 5. Repeat for anyone else, then close the dialog. ![The Manage members on Support dialog: a Search member box above an Assigned members list of two people, each with a Scope box and a cross to remove them](/images/structure-governance/how-to-assign-or-remove-a-member-from-a-role/01-manage-members-dialog.png) You can also assign from a circle's page: on the row of any role in the circle, open the three-dot menu and choose **Add member**. It opens the same dialog. ### Giving each person a Scope When several people fill the same role, a **Scope** says which part of it is theirs. In the **Manage members** dialog, each assigned person has a Scope box next to their name: type into it and click away to save. On the Members list itself, use the three-dot menu next to the person and choose **Edit scope**. Scope is free text, so it can be a region, a product, a customer segment, or anything else your circle finds useful. ## What an assignment also does Beyond filling the role, one assignment has two side effects. **The person becomes a member of the circle** that contains the role. You do not have to add them to the circle separately, and they will appear on the circle's **Members** tab with the role's name beside them. **The person becomes a decision maker of that circle.** In Talkspirit, decision maker is the permission that governs the circle's contents: creating roles, and creating and voting on proposals there. Being an organisation administrator does not grant it. An assignment does, for the circle the role sits in. To change it, go to the **circle** page, open the **Members** tab, then the three-dot menu on that person's row, and choose **Set as Non-Decision Maker**. Three things to expect there: - The menu item exists only on a circle's Members tab. A role's own Members list has no decision-maker control. - Changing the flag is narrower than assigning. An administrator can, and so can an admin of that circle. Holding one of the circle's assigner roles is enough to see the menu item but not always enough to use it, so it can come back with a permission error. - Nothing marks a decision maker. The tab labels only the exception, as **Non-Decision Maker** beside the name, in a column with no heading. An unlabelled member is a decision maker. ![The Members tab of a circle: two member rows with their roles, and one row's three-dot menu open showing Copy URL, Downgrade to member, Set as Non-Decision Maker and Remove from circle](/images/structure-governance/how-to-assign-or-remove-a-member-from-a-role/02-circle-members-decision-maker-menu.png) If the change matters for your organisation, review a circle's Members tab after a round of assignments rather than trusting the default. ## Remove a member from a role 1. Open the role page. 2. Under **Members**, open the three-dot menu next to the person. 3. Click **Unassign**. 4. Confirm in the dialog by clicking **Unassign** again. ![A role page with the Members panel on the right: two members, an Add member button below them, and one member's three-dot menu open showing Edit scope and Unassign](/images/structure-governance/how-to-assign-or-remove-a-member-from-a-role/03-role-member-row-menu.png) From the **Manage members** dialog, the cross beside a name removes them immediately, with no confirmation step. Use the Members list if you want the confirmation. ### What happens next - **The role stays.** If nobody else fills it, it is shown as **Vacant** in its circle's role list and can be found with the Vacant filter. - **The person keeps their circle membership.** Removing them from their only role in a circle does not remove them from the circle, so they remain a member of it and a decision maker of it. If that is not what you meant, remove them from the circle as well. - **The role keeps everything attached to it.** Its purpose, domains, accountabilities, goals, metrics, checklists and working agreements belong to the role, not to the person, so they wait for the next holder. - **Time spent** recorded against that role is deactivated. - **Meeting participation** they had through the role is removed. - **Open proposals stop waiting for them.** If a proposal in the circle needed their consent, they are dropped from the list of people it is waiting on, and it can complete without them. - **They are notified**, by email and in the app: "You have been removed from the role", with the role's name. Nobody is notified when they remove themselves. Removing someone from a **circle** works in the other direction: it also unassigns them from every role they hold in that circle. Those knock-on removals are silent, so the person receives one notification about the circle and none about the roles. ## Elected roles Some roles are filled by election rather than by assignment. On one of those, the button reads **Nominate a member** instead of **Add member**, and the dialog asks for an **End of mandate** date. Where your organisation has elections switched on, a direct assignment to an elected role only works as a temporary mandate: leave the end date empty and the assignment is refused, with a message telling you the role must be filled through an election or given an expiry date. To run the real thing, see [Holding an election for an elected role](/structure-governance/how-to-hold-an-election-for-an-elected-role). ## Where the rules are set **For one circle:** open the circle, choose **Settings** from its menu, and use the **Role Configuration** section on the **General** tab. **Elected roles** marks which roles need an election. **Assigner roles** names the roles whose holders may assign members in that circle, and only main roles can be chosen. The **Settings** entry appears for anyone who can manage that circle's members, not only for administrators. **For the whole organisation:** in **Structure settings**, open **General**, then the **Circles settings** tab. Under **Circle defaults**, **Role assignment** carries the "All members can assign roles" switch, and **Role elections** decides whether elections are available at all. Each has an option to let individual circles override it. This page needs administrator rights. ## What's next? - [Decision makers in a circle](/structure-governance/what-is-a-decision-maker-of-a-circle) - [Applying or resigning from a role](/structure-governance/how-do-i-apply-or-resign-from-a-role) - [Adding or removing a member without a role from a circle](/structure-governance/how-to-add-or-remove-a-member-without-a-role-from-a-circle) - [Circle Admins](/structure-governance/who-are-circle-admins) - [Configuring circle settings for my organisation](/structure-governance/how-to-configure-circle-settings-for-my-organization)