An interview with… Leading Design London
Leadership can be a lonely place. One of the reasons we started the Leading Design conferences was so that design leaders could learn from world-class speakers, find community with like-minded peers, and in turn become better leaders themselves.
With less than two weeks to go until Leading Design London 2022, we caught up with a few of our incredible speakers that will be joining us this year.
What would you say the top 3 character traits of an effective leader are?
Ray Ho: 1) Human-centricity, which affects the craft of design as well as managing a team. 2) An ability to balance creativity and science — we have to straddle both. 3) Positivity as a leader.
Lisa Welchman: Compassion, honesty and humility.
Dana Bright: 1) Vision — Helping your team to dream and see where they could go. 2) Execution — Supporting and guiding teams in making that vision come true. 3) Building a team a culture; creating a safe space where collaboration and camaraderie is nurtured and where everyone feels like they belong and can grow
Julia Whitney: Kindness, responsibility and authenticity.
James Stevens: Empathy, humility and clarity.
Aleks Melnikova: Humility, openness and a desire to action things.
Oliver Eliel: Transparency, loyalty and passion.
What is the greatest challenge you have faced as a leader?
Ray Ho: One of the biggest challenges I have had is building the foundational understanding of what design is and what designers do. Your work is getting people to believe and understand this. Once you have this understanding, you start to get the headcount and budget to flex your ‘muscles’. Storytelling is key to selling designs and a design team, craft that story in a way that is accessible and carries for those your work with, find the right time to share it, and get used to repeating it.
Lisa Welchman: My greatest challenge as a digital governance leader has been persistence in the face of resistance.
Dana Bright: The balance between giving space for teams to go big and making sure they then move fast and execute.
Julia Whitney: When I was a design leader, I found there was a lack of support.
James Stevens: Finding the balance between fostering a strong sense of identity in individual teams, whilst preventing the negative qualities of tribalism setting in.
Aleks Melnikova: Exclusion and injustice infuriate me. I want to solve things and make things better, in a fast and determined way. I have encountered resistance, especially when I was starting on the leadership path, with English as a third language and none of the local cultural context (I still can’t hold a conversation about any football clubs or TV shows, except The Day Today). Some of the resistance I met was framed as “we’ve always done it this way” and “know your place”, I refuse to make peace with either of these statements. It took me time, some wisdom, some breathing work, some context changes, and a lot of learning to successfully work with people’s instinctive adversity to change and lack of trust in new or different.
Oliver Eliel: I would say something that comes up time and time again is the trade off between speed and quality. Organisations tend to optimise for speed and time to market, but supporting design in pushing for the best quality user experience and avoiding design and tech debt is key to an outstanding product and efficient operations.
What do you do to ensure diversity and inclusion in your team?
Ray Ho: A big question so I’ll focus on the hiring front. So three things: check your own biases, have a diverse hiring panel, and design the funnel with inclusivity in mind (no take home tasks). One tangible tip: a reflex is for interviewers is to ‘debrief’ straight after an interview — stop doing this, you impede diverse assessment and introduce bias, as long as your interviewers are effectively trained, encourage and trust them to judge in their eyes — that’s why you’ve involved them, not to confirm your own perspectives.
Lisa Welchman: I make an intentional effort to work with people who have different life experiences to me.
Dana Bright: This is top priority at Meta and Instagram as a whole for all our leaders and people. We follow best practices like open communication and building safe space for people to be their authentic selves and encouraging a diverse representation.
Julia Whitney: When I was a design leader, I made sure to pay men and women equally (literally within 1–2% plus or minus).
James Stevens: Two things. Firstly, keeping it front (and centre) of mind across all aspects of work, not just hiring and promoting. Secondly, fostering an open and empathetic culture where people feel comfortable to bring their whole self to work.
Aleks Melnikova: I proactively prioritise diversity and inclusion (in hiring, in conversations and expression, in day-to-day and long-term), as well as constantly checking my own biases. It’s not enough to be a part of inclusive culture, building one requires constant work. The work is about understanding and embracing the differences, whilst being genuinely fascinated with learning about all aspects that make us unique. Creating a safe space for everyone to be their best selves, with no holding back.
Oliver Eliel: It all starts with hiring. Building a team that really believes in the values you help to define for your team is so important. At Bumble Inc, being a mission driven company, this is top of mind every single day!
Which leader has had the greatest impact on you over the years?
Ray Ho: I had an old boss who shared a catchphrase that stayed with me: “you’re not doing it right if you’re not shitting yourself”. Hugely motivating but also empowering and reassuring to always think / do on the edge — also it’s an excuse to fail! Another important lesson was from leaders who were inauthentic. This was eye opening for me, it centred me to want to be as genuine as possible — almost as an open book — I’ve found this is instrumental in creating a safe space and deeper connections in a team.
Dana Bright: It’s hard to pick one as I’m so grateful for my mentors, managers, sponsors and role-models over the years. However, I can definitely call out Annette Leong as a leader that helped me step outside of my comfort zone at Google Maps, and my managers and mentors at Meta over the years — Jon Demidio, Jaleh Afshar, Bre Miller, Susan Dybbs, and Brett Westervelt.
James Stevens: Directly: our Chief Product Officer, Fraser Stirling, who’s done a remarkable job since (re)joining Sky. Indirectly: Jurgen Klopp, a man who personifies everything I aspire to be as a leader.
Aleks Melnikova: In terms of role models, Malala Yosafzai always inspired me as someone so brave to fight for education, and her beliefs despite a very real risk to her life. Ruth Bader Ginsburg instilled confidence that being terrible at small talk is OK. I’ve also met some wonderful people over the years: supportive and inspiring. Many of them had leadership qualities. The question implies there could be one leader with a lasting impact over someone, I instead recommend changing the leaders who impact you, regularly and getting inspired by new people, their life stories, and qualities.
Oliver Eliel: I would say our Director of Product Design at Bumble, Sasha Grishin. He taught me that you can be supportive and protective of your team, whilst still being direct and impactful when you need to be. Finding that balance for leaders can be a tricky thing, but observing him for over two years has definitely helped me find myself as a manager and carve out my leadership style.
And finally, what are you currently listening to, reading or watching?
Ray Ho: I’m obsessed with Taskmaster. The creativity and ingenuity never ceases to amaze me — and coupled with it’s genuinely funny conversations and interactions is perfect escapism from reality for an hour. So yeah… that and anything set in space, love space stuff.
Oliver Eliel: Loyle Carner on repeat.
Lisa Welchman: Listening to Pharoah Sanders and reading The Abhidamma.
Dana Bright: The Unlocking Us podcast by Brene Brown.
Julia Whitney: At this exact moment, I’m listening to DJ Franno’s Friday show on 90.1 WRUV FM Burlington.
James Stevens: Listening to: Love & Let Die by John Higgs. Reading: The Neutronium Alchemist by Peter F. Hamilton. Watching: Russian Doll.
