My leadership principles

I have been in a leadership role managing designers for 10+ years of my career.

My philosophy as a leader is to inspire my teams to do the best work of their careers by providing a strategic vision, creating the conditions for success and building the relationships needed to enable and empower the teams I lead.

I follow three leadership principles to drive this philosophy:

• Provide clarity
• Foster collaboration
• Elevate the work

Provide clarity

I work closely with senior leaders to develop and define the strategic vision. I create a strategic stair step view to illustrate where we are current state, what the ideal state is, and what are the next three steps we need to take to make significant progress towards achieving our ideal state.

I determine what we already know and identify the key problems to solve. I define where there is opportunity and lead ideation to imagine possible solutions. I take steps to identify barriers and plot out what possibilities would be the best to test, learn and iterate. I leverage qualitative and quantitative methodologies to determine what possibility will be the best solution to choose.

Throughout my process, I consistently bring cross functional partners and the design team along with me to ensure alignment and understanding.

Illustrations designed by stories / Freepik

Foster collaboration

One of the first things I do when I join a new team is hold stakeholders interviews across all job disciplines to gain an understanding of what is working well, what needs to improve and what the biggest opportunities are for design to drive significant impact. Establishing and building relationships across teams as a leader creates the conditions for the entire team to collaborate with ease.

From there, I create a point of view, gain alignment and share my plan with cross functional partners and the design teams. The plan provides clarity on how I plan to drive impact as a design leader and what I will need from other leaders as well as what I need from members of the team to achieve success. Providing clarity on how we will all win together is a critical building block for fostering effective collaboration and teamwork.

Elevate the work

I lead design reviews consistently with my teams to ensure that I am seeing the work and providing feedback in a timely manner. I ensure that I am creating a psychologically safe space that encourages candor and authenticity.

I take steps as a leader to inspire my teams and enable everyone to feel comfortable sharing what is inspiring them as well. I establish an environment where my teams can be themselves, are empowered to lead their work and have the opportunities to consistently improve their craft.