Dear (none)Designer,

Welcome back to the thirty-fifth Design at Scale™ Newsletter – focusing on innovation and how design drives change in a large organisation or an agency.

The number of recruiters has voiced out that our new design leaders are overwhelmed and somehow depleted by the complexity of the new era of design that has been brought to them. Inevitably, the design of the 21st century is far more complex than it was two or three decades ago – but why shouldn't that be the complete opposite? Why are leaders of design not more empowered and more respected?

Before we delve into the topic, let's take a moment to reflect on some historical context. Design directors or any form of design leaders have always been highly respected in society. Unfortunately, pragmatism and cost-driven decision-making in the design industry began to lose ground around 2000 and continued to decline through 2019. The leadership roles weakened their position and transferred their (power and control) rights to middle management, who became a new judge and jury, if not executioner, in a completely different role: the product role.

By comparing a design director from the 1970s or 1980s, it will be a well-respected individual who leads the entire team, including project managers, product owners, and everyone else, who will report to them.

Today's design industry leaders are highly decorated, yet often lack the true leadership qualities that are often traded for likability, redistributed responsibility models and common ground agreements. This shift makes it possible for design directors with 20 years of experience to have less influence on the project than a Google three-week project manager with no field experience.

Inevitably, this shift creates pressure on the design leadership and weakens its strategic position within any organisation. Design leaders are often asked to be empathetic, submissive, emotional, and reflective, rather than being a driving force of change.

This psychological awkwardness can leave some design leaders expecting to be in charge of the team and the delivery. Where, in fact, they have no power to make any decisions. This hidden challenge lies in the gravity of decision-making about design by people who have no formal design degrees and limited knowledge of the field. At the same time, design leaders fill out the smart sheet and make false projections of waterfall estimates in agile product delivery, resulting in the design function becoming more commoditised.

The fundamental challenge is in team management; If you are a design leader with a team and no power to execute your decisions, where the opinion of others with less experience has a greater impact on your work and, where poor communication drives the decision making, where your leadership qualities are challenged by junior members of a different team, that you are in the so-called double corner scenario.

How might we overcome such a challenge and restore the balance between design leadership within the organisation and being perceived as toxic or challenging?

Every military book emphasises the power of transparency within the unit, and the design teams are no exception. Restoring transparency within your design team is the first step in achieving greater leadership for yourself and your subordinates.

This way, we bring clarity to the proposition and, more specifically, who is making the decisions. Therefore, the workforce (designers) who understand the craft and the complexity of the proposition will be empowered to make informed decisions.

Reinforcing transparency inevitably restores trust. The trust will enable you to navigate and manage the team that you are responsible for. In this way, you will eventually create a stable unit, known as a squad, within a relatively short period of time.
The transparency and trust will enable you to manage and moderate the design output, leading to greater business outcomes. With little to no effort, maintaining trust and transparency within your own team allows you to create a very stable yet reinforced unity, where your team always supports you with design-led decisions.

This way, you will at some point experience a power shift where the team recognises you as a leader of designers, not by the title, but by the action. Inevitably, by doing so, you will also win the heart of the client, who sees that your leadership is not about power and control, but it's about trust and empowering others.

That way, you can lead and scale the team from one to many, where your squad's trust is the key.
Businesses often rely on trust and emotions as catalysts for change within the organisation; one bad thing can derail a year of preparation. Be therefore mindful that in this situation, trust counts more than opinion. And far more often, it is a guiding principle of true leadership within the organisation.

For more information, please visit Designa at Scale™ – GRID Magazine, where you can find additional relevant articles that explore high-performing teams, self-organising teams of 001, teams of 010, and teams of 100 that deliver the value proposition within a product-led environment.