How can you maintain professional relationships when you're promoted in UX Research?

When stepping into a leadership role in UX research, effective communication is paramount. Be clear and respectful in conveying your objectives, expectations, and feedback to your team, stakeholders, and users. Actively listen to others, valuing their insights and contributions. Transparent and empathetic communication builds trust, fosters respect, and encourages collaboration—essential elements in maintaining strong professional relationships.

Once again, here I am making a non-vanilla comment about communicating clearly and respectfully for UX Researchers (and leadership). While I'm not against respectful engagement, I'm fascinated how respectfulness is described with drastic differences for PMs, their business counterparts versus for UX Researchers.My experience in the field has shown me in consistent patterns that for being frightened at the risk of not sounding respectful and emphatic, UX Researchers shy away from making straightforward (and at times bold) commends.This is quite unlike PM roles for example where decisiveness (almost to the degree of forcefulness) is valued.While I don't support any extremes on each end,it's worth rethinking how we understand being respectful.

You may be promoted but you are nothing without your peers. Your new role means new responsibilities, for example being responsible for strategizing research. You still need your team mates to work on UX research projects together, you do the work together to create impact together. I like taking on the role as coach or facilitator. I'm there to help my peers succeed so that we, as a team, succeed.

"What's in it for me?" This could be a question that your peers might be asking themselves, and this is not a bad thing at all. For your promotion to mean something for other people - something beyond being happy for you that your hard work paid off - you need to show clearly and consistently what your growth might mean for them: Do they get to learn more? Have more autonomy? What kind of behavioral change does your promotion inspire in them? Granted, there'll be always competitive people that operate under zero sum game mindset. But apart from extreme cases, I optimistically believe that you can offer back your promotion to others as something that improves "their" lives on daily bases.

Maintaining professional relationships post-promotion is key. Acknowledge and support your peers, avoiding any temptation to distance yourself or assert undue authority. Celebrate their achievements, value their skills, and be open to learning from them. Offer guidance and mentorship while respecting their expertise, nurturing a culture of mutual respect and collaboration within the UX research community. Balancing leadership with camaraderie is vital for sustained positive relationships.

Maintaining relationships after a promotion involves managing expectations and boundaries. Recognize the pressure to perform but set achievable goals and prioritize effectively. Delegate tasks when needed and don't hesitate to seek assistance. Remember, respecting your limits and well-being is crucial. Balancing these aspects ensures a smooth transition into a leadership role while preserving your credibility and fostering positive relationships.

I think it's important that when you are promoted In the field that you have a clear understanding of what this promotion entails. It's often ourselves that set the bar of expectations extremely high even though we were promoted of doing an amazing job already, causing people to overwork, get overwhelmed or end up in burnout. Discuss your promotion with your manager (even before accepting it) so you know what the promotion means and what is expected of you.

Promotion doesn't mean you will lose or detached with professional relationship. Instead, promotion will give you added authority towards UXOps. Feedback and learnings is a continuous process. because product improvement depends on feedbacks. In any phase of UX research you can seek feedback. But remember, you should collect feedback which are: 1) Relevant 2) Specific 3) Alignment with goals Before seeking feedback, please identify key/important participants, peers, stakeholders.

When you are promoted to UX research, your first responsibility should be to seat with everyone and encourage divergent thinking. You should be polite at all situation. you should encourage everyone to express their voice. You should identify most quietest voice in the room. Because who knows, quietest voice can bring the best innovative solution.