Lessons in Leadership: Advice from My Design Career

Note: Welcome back to my latest post series, adapted from my recent appearance on the Samelogic podcast! In these past few posts, I’ve done a deeper dive into some of the topics we discussed in the interview, which centered on leadership, hiring, and inclusivity in UX design. Give it a listen if you want to learn more!

On the podcast, Dwayne Samuels asked me what advice I would give to aspiring UX leaders. This question got me thinking, and I found myself still reflecting on it after our conversation was over. What are the secrets to success in the design field? What wisdom do I wish I could give my younger self?

Like design itself, design leadership is a process of trial and error. I’ve spent many years of my career figuring out what works (and what doesn’t!), making mistakes, and learning how to best support my teams while growing individually as a leader and design practitioner. I can’t say there’s any single piece of advice I can give that’s 100% foolproof, but I hope that by sharing some of my biggest learnings, I can set you up for success. If you’re looking to take your first plunge into a leadership role, or advance your current one, here’s some advice from my journey that might help you along the way.

Seek mentorship beyond your field

Mentorship is important. Strike that — mentorship is extremely important. When I look back on my own career path, I’m reminded that I probably wouldn’t be where I am today if others hadn’t invested in mentoring me. But the other piece to this, which doesn’t get talked about nearly as much, is that you can get even more out of mentorship when you expose yourself to areas beyond your current field. As I mentioned in my conversation with Dwayne, I never limited myself to learning just from UX leaders, designers, or design-adjacent professionals. Looking back, that helped me build so many foundational skills that have been critical to my success as a leader.

The takeaway? Don’t limit yourself to design. Instead, take every opportunity to learn from someone, no matter what their specialty is. Engineering, product management, marketing, HR, sales, operations, analytics… Whenever you have a chance to exchange information, even if it’s not a formal mentor-mentee relationship, you’re expanding your perspective and building expertise that will power your career down the line.

Collaborate to build empathy

In my earlier post on key skills for design leaders, I talked about empathy and why it’s important from a leadership and design standpoint. When you can understand the challenges others face, you can more easily find solutions. If you can’t put yourself in other people’s shoes, you’ll always be limited as a designer — but empathy isn’t only for the users. It’s also a key skill for collaborating with your team and cross-functional partners. Leaders who make an effort to understand different perspectives can collaborate and drive alignment more easily.

How do you develop empathy? Look for ways to create an open dialogue across functions. Set up collaborative workshops to co-create and break down silos. Start ongoing meetings to review goals and timelines. Discuss pain points and share ideas with other teams. Each time you do this, you’re building trust and growing your understanding of your coworkers — and you’re also helping them understand you!

Turn your weaknesses into strengths

Sometimes, we can turn what we think of as “weaknesses” into something we can leverage to have a positive impact. Early in my career, I was extremely focused on having everything look and function a certain way. You can call it perfectionism if you want (I think that’s something we experience a lot as designers and researchers)! In any case, when an outcome didn’t meet my quality standards — maybe a feature didn’t work the way I imagined or something wasn’t implemented quite right — I would get frustrated: “Why can’t you just see things my way? Why aren’t you creating things the way I’m asking you to?”

What I realized was that moments like those were actually learning opportunities. What was the reason my Engineering partners made the decisions they did? What constraints or challenges were they facing? Was there something I was missing? The more I invested in understanding how things were built, the more empathy (there it is again!) I developed for my engineering partners. Since then, some of my best, most productive relationships have been with engineering teams. My high standards became a motivator for collaborating and finding better solutions through curiosity and communication. The key was finding a way to channel what was once a weakness into something productive.

Embrace what sets you apart

It’s going to sound cliche, but bear with me: Your differences are one of your biggest assets. I grew up feeling like a square peg in a round hole. I always seemed to view things differently than everyone else, and that could feel like a disadvantage. But being different is a superpower, and I credit a lot of my biggest successes to being able to see the world and approach problems in a different way.

As a designer, you’ll go a long way when you can bring a unique perspective to the table, so don’t shy away from that! Voice your unique insights. Challenge the status quo. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. This is how you inspire your teams, unlock new ideas, and succeed in a space that thrives on innovation.

Moving forward and moving up

It’s funny to be asked about my biggest learnings from my own career, since a lot of the time, I feel like I’m still learning! And as I think about it now, that might be the biggest piece of advice I can give to new and aspiring design leaders: Always be learning, and don’t lose your natural curiosity.

Becoming a strong design leader is a process, and there will be mistakes and missteps along the way. The good news is, each of those pitfalls is also a learning opportunity — you just have to be willing to actually, well, learn from it. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so seek connections and mentorship, embrace your differences, and look for ways to leverage your weaknesses. That’s the secret to evolving as a designer and as a leader. See you next time!