Design Leadership: From Creator to Facilitator

I’ve wanted to write this article for some time to chronicle my own journey in design leadership, and some of the issues and adjustments that I’ve faced personally. This is the information I wish I would have had when I first made the transition to a lead role. However, leadership doesn’t have to include a management role or title. Leadership is about serving others and filling gaps in your organization or team to help build value, and support your team’s efforts. This can include creating processes where there are none, adding tools, templates, and guidelines that help build team cohesion, consistency and grow the collective knowledge-base.

“However, leadership doesn’t have to include a management role or title. Leadership is about serving others and filling gaps in your organization or team to help build value, and support your team’s efforts.”

Currently, I serve a team of 18 researchers, designers, content strategists and UI devs as UCD Lead on a large government project. I say serve, because they are the rockstars and I am the backstage manager and stage hand. Your job as a leader is to help the team do the best work they can do through guidance, mentoring, process improvement, and clearing…