8 reasons to become a design leader
Why become a design leader?
There are many reasons why you might not want to become a design leader.
To get a flavour of some of the difficulty, I wrote a post earlier today on this subject. But there’s also the satisfaction of doing hands-on design work yourself. the majority of the time. Designers are lucky to have a paid job to design. Despite the challenges, it has to be one of the most satisfying careers there is. That’s a big reason NOT to become a design leader.
But most designers will end up having the choice of taking more responsibility at some stage. To look after the welfare of others. To manage their careers. To evangelise the work of the team. Build it. Define the approach. To set the vision for the team, the product or the service. To be a design leader.
I’d like to use this post to explain why only some should do this. because not all designers should. But it is hard to know without trying.
When asked, why we wanted to be a design leader by Stanley from Spotify at the Leading Design conference, I wrote something pithy:
I wanted to amplify the value of others.
Now, that is a bit of a sales line to myself (and to others), but there is truth to it. I’d like to unpack that from my perspective. And I have a lot of perspective, as it’s been a while since I have considered myself a design leader.
I think it’s worth becoming a design leader for the following eight reasons:
- Engage in more strategic conversations
- Help grow people’s careers
- Build a team and culture
- Master presentation software
- Avoid the tool chasing of a modern designer
- Meet lots of interesting people and see lots of work
- Sell design
- Further your own career
1. Engage in more strategic conversations
A lot of the time as a designer, you have to work within constraints you don’t really understand. Someone else has usually framed the brief. Someone else has made the plan and constrained the budget. Someone may have set unrealistic expectations of what was feasible.
Your role as a leader is to do some of those things better than you have experienced as a designer before.
Write clear briefs. Work with the team to develop a realistic plan and budget based on the likely team and what you know of them. Increase the chances for success. Increase the chances that your team can do something remarkable.
You can also engage in more strategic company discussions. Defining what you stand for. Engaging an external agency to help you. Discussing where the company goes next.
2. Help grow people’s careers
As a design leader you’ll have the official role of influencing other people’s careers. You’ll influence what work they may do. You’ll influence the direction they may go in. You’ll help them understand where they are strong, and where they can develop. You’ll help coach them to their full potential and push them beyond.
I used to enjoy the first meeting of a designer after they had joined. And most other meetings I had with them, of course. Regular quarterly reviews. 6 monthly or annual reviews. But it’s the first meeting with a designer that’s the best. You and they, if you have done your hiring right, are excited and a little anxious about the road ahead. This meeting will probably be a lot more honest than any interview. They have the job. They don’t have to perform. In fact, it’s important that they are as honest as possible. And it’s your job to create that ‘safe space’. You want to understand them more and how they want to grow. It’s also your opportunity to describe how things work and how you will work with them and support them. Be realistic. Be truthful. And aim to stick to whatever you say.
In your one-on-one meetings you’ll often come back to what you discussed in this meeting. They may be formal reviews, regular one-on-ones or ad-hoc meetings. What they said at the start of the job will evolve. It’s your job to help evolve that with them. To coach, not direct them. To shut up as much as possible. Helping others grow.
It’s been one of the most rewarding parts of my career. More rewarding than any single design project I have worked on.
When I saw Susan present the Mobile Map of Medicine work she did at a conference, I have never felt so proud. For her. For me. For our work together through that project. For the space I helped to create. For seeing her go beyond my expectations and push through a whole lot of crap.
And just last week I had a similar experience. I was so impressed when I saw Simon present at Leading Design this year many years after I first hired him. He had grown to become a great manager. With great insight. Delivering a killer, emotional presentation about design leadership itself.
But, there are hundreds more examples. Where I would see and hear feedback from others about the team I helped create. On the individuals that I worked with. Despite the difficulties they faced, others were impressed. And so was I.
I would also get to witness the ingenuity, the professionalism and the quality of the work.
I will forever be impressed by Sam’s sketching skills. By his speed to brilliant conceptual ideas. By his ability to be loved by those that he worked with. So good was Sam, I hired him twice.
And that’s part of the thing of being a leader or manager. You have to look out for their long-term. Beyond their current job role.
“A line manager for life.”
That’s what I would say. It’s cheesy, but I meant it. Seeing Sam develop between his two roles with me was great. But then hearing about how he grew and supported the team at Potato, just had me beaming. He’s now off doing some super squirrel stuff somewhere for a vacuum cleaning company. I know it will be amazing.
It’s hard when they have to leave you. But if you understand them well. And they are truthful of why they have to go. If it isn’t the right place for them right now. Then it can be the happiest of days too. It’s just sad that they move on. Not feeling comfortable enough to stay in touch. Or not necessarily wanting or needing you any more. This must be what it feels like being a parent having their kid go to university. Sometimes you may disagree with their motives. Side with your company or your own beliefs that its worth staying.
3. Build a team and culture
You may already have a team in place when you become a design leader. You may have noone. Either way, you have a role to play in defining what the team should be. The size. The types of skills. The types of people. Who you hire. Who you let go. Who you fight for. Who you give up on. Your choices (within others’ constraints enforced upon you) will reflect on you. It is important that you have clarity and flexibility of what you want. And that you are realistic on what you can offer based on others’ demands and expectations.
The team shouldn’t be your mirror image. I don’t believe that’s what you or the business needs. And you shouldn’t be so definite about what you want that you miss out on that brilliant curve ball. That lovely man or women, with huge potential who doesn’t know it. The ones you might have to argue with others to take the risk. When it pays off, it’s the best feeling.
But the most amount of joy you can have is when you see the people you hire get together. Whether in a team meeting. Or on a project. When things are working well. When they have a laugh, When they do something extraordinary together. When they become friends. Or even, when a whole bunch of them keep coming back together in other organisations. You helped facilitate that. You helped create a longstanding culture. You catalysed friendships.
4. Master presentation software
This is gonna sound weird. But I actually enjoy making slide decks. A lot of my life as a leader and as a manager, was making slide decks. For a long period, it was the closest I was getting to tangible design. I’m pretty good at it. If good means quick. And ok, visually. But I also get better. PowerPoints and Keynotes are important tools as a design leader. They help you evangelise. Tell stories. Outline strategies. To sell. To plan.
Yes. I think I use them too much. And they can be epic. But whole sections can be reused. Just get someone else to make a good template. Unless you are a template master with super shit-hot graphic design skills just capitalise on someone else’s skills in this area.
5. Avoid the tool chasing of being a modern designer
One of the best things about being a design leader rather than a hands-on designer — an individual contributor (IC) in US terminology — is avoiding the need to learn new tools every month. I don’t know what has happened in the past few years, but it’s getting crazy. I have no idea how an IC (I dislike that term by the way) keeps up. I’m glad that I don’t need to. Although, I have recently been getting hands-on (or ICing) again. I have had that debate around whether to find an old copy of Fireworks, jump into Sketch, or go straight to XD. Yes. Fireworks. No. Not Axure. Sorry.
Now, avoiding learning the tool chasing is one thing. You’ll still have to manage emotions and skewed logic (basically emotions) about which tools to shift the whole working practices to. Or not. Why do designers get so het up on this subject? It’s great to see their passion.
6. Meet lots of interesting people and see lots of work
Hiring in the current market is a real challenge. The inflated egos. The variance in quality and remuneration. The charlatans. And the old dogs that can’t learn new tricks. The mixed levels of confidence.
But thank funk there is an upside.
The work. The stories. The folios. The work histories. I’m an introvert, but I loved meeting people in interviews. I loved hearing how they had got to were they got to. Explain what challenges they faced and how they overcame. I loved seeing great deliverables or post-it walls (yes, I know, but I did). I liked seeing them genuinely being proud of what they had done.
Even when there was someone I wasn’t going to hire. If they had potential, I enjoyed trying to offer some advice for the future. Some clear feedback. It was rare. Sometimes recruiters didn’t pass it on. Why? No idea. Bad judgement. Maybe they thought that my feedback wasn’t helpful.
7. Sell design
There’s something exciting about selling design. With your PowerPoint or Keynote of course. With your team’s great design work inside. With all those messages you heard at design conferences. Using the testimonials of your clients or their users.
I think it’s the mix of those faces contemplating the theory and salivating at the possibilities. The connection of the rational and the emotional.
When it’s their problem framed and early solutions teased, it’s even better. But that is a dangerous game.
Design can be incredibly seductive. Your job as a design leader is to make it so seductive that they want your team’s design effort. But more importantly, to make them realise what is really entailed. How much commitment we need from them and their team. Why it isn’t just magic fairy dust. Why there is still risk.
8. Further your own career
There’s no doubt that there can be some financial upside to becoming a design leader. That can be a trap. Especially if you ever need to revert to a Designer role again. But there are some huge career development opportunities.
There’s the line management. There’s the exposure to more strategic business decisions. There’s the selling demands.
It suits a distracted, but focused mind — as if that makes sense. It’s hard to get the space to focus. But you’ll need to. It will be hard to plan. You’ll need to learn to manage time in a different way. You’ll need to accomodate flexibility for emergencies from within your team. You can’t plan for a divorce, a death in the family, one of your team’s colleagues blowing up at them, news of a baby.
It’s always interesting. Never dull.
But the best bit, is the excuse to talk to other leaders. I didn’t do it enough. I wish I had. But when you do it, you realise how so many of your challenges are shared with others like you. That’s always reassuring.
What are your reasons for becoming a design leader?
NB, For the purposes of this post, I have conflated design leadership and design management. Partly because design management is often a whole other thing around managing agencies. And mostly because in my Head of, Director and Lead roles I was both managing teams and leading them. I note that they are different. In some cases, you may have separate people covering different aspects. I also don’t identify with the VP role. It feels like such an American thing. And I don’t really understand how you can have many VPs in an organisation.
