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UX leadership is failing (and what we can do about it)

Design spent years trying to get a seat at the leadership table. But in too many cases, the inability to drive real impact is resulting in resources being cut and influence diminished.

Mike Kuechenmeister
UX Collective
6 min readFeb 22, 2024

An abstract representation of colorful glass shattering

It's been a brutal year for UX. Even a cursory glance at UX job postings on LinkedIn reveals that the relatively few opportunities out there are getting hundreds of applicants within hours of being posted. The chance of even being called back for an open role is incredibly slim. Research suggests UX roles are being eliminated disproportionately to other key functions like Engineering. Leadership opportunities are even more scarce with VP and Executive level roles almost impossible to find. Even key design leadership roles at large companies like J&J, IBM, and Expedia are in some instances being eliminated. UX influence, it seems, has been greatly marginalized through countless rounds of layoffs this year. There are probably many factors, but the one that jumps out at me is that after years of wanting to be at the leadership table where big decisions are made, in too many cases, UX leadership is failing to deliver.

Where do UX leaders come from?

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Published in UX Collective

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Written by Mike Kuechenmeister

Director of User Experience Design at Supergreen Digital, previously at Northwestern Mutual, ACS Technologies, Optum, United Healthcare and The Farmbell.

Responses (8)

What are your thoughts?

Let’s not forget that many leaders in design are carpetbaggers from other disciplines. Neither Phil Gilbert, nor his replacement at IBM came from design backgrounds. In a more than 30 year career in what we now call Product Design in large…

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I take umbrage at your descriptions of two (!) patterns of leadership.
First, for there to be patterns there ought to be more than two.
Second, patterns ought to be either organizational in nature, and so reflect organizational factors, forces, and…

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The lack of leadership skills you raise are valid. But they are not limited to UX—product, engineering, marketing and CX departments suffer from the same. The difference is UX falls in the cracks of most business strategies prevalent in the current…

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