A leaders influence is measured by the growth of their team. The hallmark of a leader is someone who stays close to their team, understands their strengths and motivations, and makes space for people to step into their full potential.
I think about Victoria and Carol a lot. Back in 2013, I was a UX content strategy contractor at Home Depot corporate, earlier in my career and keen to grow and evolve. When my contract ended, my manager Victoria didn’t just let me leave, she worked hard to convert me into a full-time employee in a new Information Architecture role that required learning entirely different tools. And Carol, a colleague on her way out, carved out her own time to teach me Axure (remember that?!) to give me a strong start in my new position. Nobody asked her to. She just saw someone who needed a hand and extended one.
That was thirteen years ago and it's still my clearest benchmark for what real design leadership looks like. It’s not a title on LinkedIn or a presentation you give at a conference - it’s the innate growth mindset of people who saw an opportunity to invest in someone and build their team, and acted on it in a way that was clear, supportive, participatory and empowering.
Accountability Defines Leadership
I've worked with teams of designers who were talented but adrift, unsure of what was expected of them, unclear on where they were headed, and understandably guarded because of it. I've watched friends and colleagues cycle in and out of roles not because they weren't capable, but because nobody was paying close enough attention to set them up well. And sadly, that's not a pipeline problem or a talent problem - I think it’s a leadership problem. Partially because leadership is increasingly stretched thin, without the time or ability to really stay close to their team.
When I became a manager, it wasn’t because I wanted a bigger title. I wanted the growth and responsibility of being in this honored position of being someone who can help unblock and shape someone’s career like how my most effective managers did for me. The people on your team are making real decisions about their careers, their confidence, and their sense of professional worth based in large part on how you show up for them. That's not something to take lightly.
A few managerial principles I now hold closely:
- Define success explicitly and early. Vague expectations aren't a neutral starting point, they're a setup for failure. Your team needs to be given clear roles and responsibilities, a definition of what good looks like, and consistent benchmarks for success, especially in the first 30-60-90 of a new role. If they don’t have a clear sense of what to do at work, that's not a personal failing - that’s on the leader.
- A struggling team member is a signal, not a verdict. Before escalating to a PIP, a manager owes it to that person to ask honestly: did they have the context, the feedback, and the support to succeed? If the answer is no, that's where the work starts. I’ve helped people come back from this by simply creating more clarity and alignment in their role and visibility. I also think the "mis-hire" framing that I’ve observed a few times is mostly a cop-out. If something in someone’s portfolio got them through the door, there are obvious strengths worth developing and your job as a manager is to figure out how to position that person most appropriately.
- Stay close to what your team actually wants. Not just their current work, but their ambitions, their frustrations, what energizes them. In this job market, a lot of people are quietly suffering through bad fits and uninteresting work because asking for something different feels risky. And if they don’t know where they want to be going, it’s probably because they need guidance that’s literally what you’re there for as a manager. Good leaders create enough safety that people don't have to make that calculation on their own.
- Make their impact visible. Designers often do work that goes unrecognized outside the design org. Name it upward, attribute it specifically, and advocate for them in rooms they're not in yet. I feel proud to have gotten several designers promoted because I spent a long time writing promotion defenses and articulating how they could help the organization but I also continually highlighted their specific achievements and spoke about myself only as the mouthpiece - I always make it clear that my team is responsible for the work, and I shepherded it along.
- Keep fine-tuning. A well-placed team member isn't a solved problem. People change, roles evolve, and the work of making sure someone feels appropriately leveraged is ongoing. The leaders who do this well treat it as a core part of the job, not an occasional check-in.