When Designers become Leaders, they stop designing; true or false?
False.
I see design leadership as leading:
- People
- Process
- Place
Each is a challenge that needs framing and solving. For example:
People: How do you coach, mentor, direct and motivate designers to become better than they are? This includes career development, encouraging the right behaviours and picking the right teammates to join the team.
Process: How do you connect the highest impact, toughest problems to the best-suited designers in the shortest amount of time? This includes influencing leaders, priorities and stakeholders.
Place: How do you create an environment and culture where the best work can happen? This includes creating a safe and respectful environment for the fiercest design critiques and most fragile of ideas to flourish.
If you get People, Process and Place right, and enough designers hear about it, you become a talent magnet, which is pretty important if you want to be a leader. You are not a leader if no one follows you.
Transitioning into the role of a design leader, I went from designing the design to designing the designer and designing the place within which they design.
Hence, as a design leader, you don’t stop designing.
You just design different things.