Taking a Leap from Craft to Management? 10 Challenges Facing New UX Managers

Congratulations, you’ve been promoted to a UX management role! Making the leap from hands-on design to leading a team is an accomplishment worthy of celebration. But once the initial excitement wears off, the hard work begins.

Being responsible for guiding people versus pixels brings new trials: letting go of tactical work, providing tough feedback, thinking strategically, and influencing the business. The management playbook differs enormously from the designer handbook. Having walked in those shoes years ago and mentoring new managers in the recent years, I've observed these common growing pains time and again across design leaders new to management. I’ve seen smart, savvy designers struggle to find their footing as new leaders. Does this sounds familiar?

I have a (or two) good news for you. First, you are not alone! Second, with the right approach, these common growing pains can be overcome through self-awareness, skill development and tactical frameworks. This comprehensive guide will break down the core challenges, blindspots, and approaches to level up into an effective UX manager. Think of it as management 101 for UX - from someone who has been in your shoes. Let's get started!

#1. Letting Go of Tactical Design Work: After years honing the craft, new managers often struggle to relinquish control of hands-on design work. Let's face the truth, it feels easy to play in our comfort zone. The temptation to continue tactical tasks like wireframing or prototyping is strong because you know it like the back of your hand. However, doing so prevents strategic prioritisation and capacity planning for the team. It also inhibits professional growth for designers who now report to you. They may feel being micromanaged by their manager.

Common blind spot: Believing you can or should continue the same hands-on design work as before.

Approaches to overcome:

• Have self-awareness that your role has changed. Outline new responsibilities like 1:1s, hiring, performance reviews, budgeting, and long-term planning.
• Identify opportunities to fully delegate tactical work to develop your team. Ask your team how much support they expect from you, some may need more support in the beginning while others may be capable of doing the job independently. Share your fears and concerns with them and adjust your intervention accordingly. Reserve your time for managerial priorities.
• If you miss hands-on work, negotiate allocating a small % of time to maintain skills. But don't let this overtake your calendar.
• Establish org processes like design critiques and feedback loops to stay connected to the work at a strategic level without interfering in their day-to-day work.

#2. Managing Former Peers: The dynamic shift from peer to manager of ex-teammates can be awkward. Both sides must rewire thinking and ways of working. Close friendships change to professional relationships with clear boundaries.

Common blind spot: Making unfair assumptions based on past peer interactions vs actual performance.

Approaches to overcome:

• Acknowledge the transition openly and discuss changes in roles.
• Institute consistent 1:1s focused on goals, development areas and career aspirations.
• Celebrate team wins impartially based on work delivery rather than friendships.
• Establish office hours for informal connections but maintain clear boundaries on personal topics. Remember, your responsibilities around protecting sensitive information while communicating in your new role.
• If tensions persist, use conflict resolution tactics or change direct reporting lines. Discuss with your manager and seek advice to resolve the conflicts.

#3. Adopting Strategic Thinking: Design leaders must consider long-term vision, roadmaps, and cross-functional initiatives for the entire experience. This big picture thinking muscle needs strengthening after years focused on tactical execution as an IC.

Common blind spot: Getting pulled into project details versus strategic priorities.

Approaches to overcome:

• Block your calendar ruthlessly for strategic thinking time. Step away from the chaos when needed.
• Reflect on wider market trends, 2+ year goals, and competitive forces annually. Paint a future vision.
• Ensure team missions ladders up to business objectives and KPIs. Align workstreams to strategy.
• Review progress on key strategic initiatives and problem areas quarterly. Adjust as needed.
• Seek executive coaching to sharpen strategic thinking abilities as a new leader.

#4. Influencing Across the Organisation: Managers must influence up, down, and across the org without formal authority over other departments. New UX leaders learning to negotiate with executives, persuade engineering, and collaborate with product marketing can find this matrix management tricky. It's not natural to decide when to push ahead and decide independently and when to push back and influence.

Common blind spot: Relying only on hierarchical authority versus soft influence.

Approaches to overcome:

• Discover stakeholder motivations, incentives, and pressures. Seek advice from your manager and prepare a stakeholder map to understand the lay of the land, tailor communications accordingly.
• Bring compelling data and user insights to make the case for UX priorities.
• Identify mutual goals to build partnerships with other department leads, cross-functional relationships are really important to succeed.
• Earn trust and influence through actions, not edicts. Deliver on commitments.
• Hone emotional intelligence skills like active listening, empathy, and strategic questioning. Designers are good at empathising with their customers, users, and staff members, apply same empathy-led approach with your stakeholders to understand their goals and challenges.

#5. Coaching & Mentoring Your Team: People management abilities like coaching direct reports through challenges, developing careers, or fostering mentoring relationships require new competencies for new leaders.

Common blind spot: Being overly directive based on your own narrow experiences.

Approaches to overcome:

• Ask guiding questions to make team members think versus providing instructions. Aim to teach your team to fish rather than feeding them the fish.
• Connect reports with growth opportunities like conferences, training, or stretch assignments. Apply your creative problem solving skills to identify opportunities to up-skill them.
• Share useful frameworks, case studies and best practices - but don't dictate solutions.
• Recognise teachable moments in failures and challenges to build resilience.
• Set context and expectations then get out of the way to avoid micromanaging. Your team members are smart to find the solutions, trust them, and be there when they need support.

#6. Providing Constructive Feedback: Managers must regularly provide developmental feedback on work - even when it's uncomfortable. Difficult conversations and difficult decisions are part and parcel of the management role. Often managing former peers, new UX leaders can struggle to critique those they previously collaborated with as equals. Close relationships and lack of management experience makes negative feedback tricky.

Common blind spot: Avoiding tough feedback to avoid friction and be liked.

Approaches to overcome:

• Build psychological safety on your team so giving/receiving feedback becomes the norm. Start small, experiment with different approaches in context with your team culture and keep iterating.
• Ask clarifying questions first to understand context before reacting.
• Sandwich negative feedback between positive or reinforcing comments. Also known as Happy, Sad, Happy approach.
• Focus feedback on the work itself rather than the person. Allow time for recipients to digest.
• Get training on delivering effective feedback tailored to different personalities.
• Solicit peer coaching from other managers on improving your feedback approach.

#7. Public Speaking and Communication: As the UX team lead, more presentations, meetings, and broader communications come with the territory. Many designers are used to working independently, more often sitting in the corner with their headphones on while smashing the pixels on the screen. So, public speaking and soft skills may need a bit of polishing.

Common blind spot: Shying away from speaking opportunities and using poor verbal crutches when presenting.

Approaches to overcome:

• Become deeply knowledgeable on your specialty subject matter. Let expertise shine through.
• Craft compelling stories versus dry presentations. Get coaching to improve narrative and flow. Remember, a good designer is a great storyteller.
• Request feedback after presentations to grow as a public speaker. Fix common crutches.
• Practice extensively - alone and in front of trusted colleagues. Refine based on feedback.
• Volunteer to present at conferences or external events to gain experience.

#8. Battling Imposter Syndrome: Despite external qualifications, many new managers privately doubt themselves. Building true leadership self-efficacy takes time and experience sitting in the hot seat. Imposter syndrome is especially common among women, immigrants, and minority leaders.

Common blind spot: Keeping quiet versus speaking up to mask self-doubt.

Approaches to overcome:

• Develop mentor relationships with experienced managers who can advise and reassure.
• Give yourself grace - you're not expected to have all the answers.
• Be vulnerable about challenges to normalise asking for help when needed.
• Maintain a growth mindset. Focus on developing new skills versus perfection.

#9. Workload Balance: The array of people management, process building, cross-functional projects and day-to-day chaos can quickly become overwhelming. Learning to prioritise and delegate takes practice for new leaders.

Common blind spot: Taking on too much individually and burning out.

Approaches to overcome:

• Block your calendar proactively for focus time. It's ok to say no, learn to decline politely, yet firmly.
• Take care of yourself, prioritise your wellbeing. Seek help and coaching.
• Establish consistent team sync times versus ad hoc meetings. Early visibility helps clarifying the expectations while reducing friction.
• Distinguish rigorously between importance and false urgency. Delay less critical work.
• Communicate your schedule constraints firmly across the org. Push back when needed.
• Delegate purposefully and monitor results versus taking on too much.

#10. Understanding Business Language and Translating UX Impact

Unlike hands-on design roles, managers must understand the business strategy and KPIs and connect UX impact to this bigger picture. They must also communicate user value persuasively to executives in business terms. Remember, the purpose of a business' existence is to stay profitable.

Common blind spot: Leaning too heavily on design jargon versus business outcomes.

Approaches to overcome:

• Spend time to understand your business numbers and targets.
• Learn basic business acumen like how to interpret P&Ls, KPI dashboards, and metrics.
• Ask peers to explain business terminology and shorthand you don't grasp. Absorb like a sponge. Learn business language to teach business your language.
• Translate UX recommendations into dollars, conversion rates, or other concrete outcomes that your business aim for.
• Feature case studies where UX lifted key metrics to build credibility with leaders.

Evolving into management is an enormous transition. But by anticipating common hurdles, reflecting on blindspots and adopting proven frameworks, new UX managers can thrive as strategic design leaders.

What other challenges or recommendations would you add based on your own management journey? Please share your insights below!

I support design leaders at all levels to build and develop their Design Practices. If you are interested in learning more, feel free to reach out to book in time with me.

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