05. On Leadership

05. On Leadership

What’s the difference between a leader and a manager?

But here’s the thing, given that low UX maturity is so incredibly rampant in the software industry today, I would argue you can’t do great work without possessing some of the skills that make great leaders great.

Have you thought about your career? I mean really thought about your career? Have you thought about your goals? Have you thought about where you want to be five, maybe ten years down the road? Maybe you want to go down the management track. Or maybe you want to be a badass individual contributor at the top of your game, laying low, just doing great work, no need to worry about all that annoying HR BS that goes along with being a supervisor.

There’s no shortage of “leadership gurus” on LinkedIn or social media. When you see people online talking about leadership, what comes to mind? 

Have you thought about leadership? Have you always dreamt of being a leader? Or does the thought of being in a position of leadership fill you with dread? Does it make you want to run for the exits?

Personally, I think given the state of the UX profession today, and the low UX maturity at most companies, it’s pretty hard to do our job if we don’t want to lead in some way. Or at the very least have a certain skill set that many good leaders possess. 

A lot of times, I see people conflating management and leadership. Assuming these two things are one and the same. But I don’t think that’s accurate. Hopefully, your manager is also a good leader. But there are lots of managers out there that are terrible leaders. And there are likely, right now, several people on your team who have no official authority, but I bet lots of people would consider them leaders in one way or another.

How do we define “leader?” What’s interesting is there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of agreement on this. Even Simon Sinek, one of the first people that might come to mind when you think about leadership, says “We don’t have a good standard definition for what a leader is”.

Sure there is Webster’s definition of “leader,” which, I think, is awful. Go look it up if you want, but I don’t think it really applies to what most people today would consider “a leader” in 2022. It’s definitely not what a lot of the “leadership influencers” would use to define leadership.

What is leadership anyway?

So that really begs the question: “What is leadership anyway?” A while back, I came across an article from INC by the author of “Emotional Intelligence 2.0,” Dr. Travis Bradberry. Where he attempted to define leadership. And I think this might be one of the best definitions I have come across.

In the article, Bradberry starts out by talking about what Leadership is not, and I think it’s worth highlighting here.

Leadership has nothing to do with seniority or one’s position in the hierarchy of a company. 

Let’s hope your company’s senior executive team is full of a bunch of great leaders, but we all know that isn’t always the case. Lots of times people are just given promotion after promotion and end up as senior this or that without any thought about how well they will actually lead.

Don’t mistake a company’s “senior leadership” for actual leaders. 

Leadership has nothing to do with titles.

Leadership isn’t always about leading anyone on paper. It’s not about titles. Having an important title doesn’t make you a leader, and being a leader doesn’t necessarily mean you lead anyone on paper. You can lead in your community, at work, on your team, or wherever without having any official mandate.

Leadership has nothing to do with personal attributes. 

As Bradberry says in his article, leadership isn’t an adjective. It’s not for just one specific type of personality trait. You don’t have to be an extrovert or have a bunch of charisma to practice leadership. And charismatic extroverts don’t automatically become great leaders.

Leadership isn’t management. 

Management and leadership are not synonyms. Having 10 direct reports does not make you a leader. It makes you a supervisor. Managers have specific skills like planning, measuring, monitoring, coordinating, hiring, firing, talent reviews, etc. Lots of other things. Managers should spend their time managing things. Leaders lead people in different ways. Leadership is not about managing people or things.

So what is Bradberry’s definition of leadership? Here’s what he says:

While I think that’s a pretty good definition, I found a response to Bradberry’s article by a guy named Justin Bariso, and while his definition is similar, I think it’s actually a better definition.

The reason I like this second one better is that it highlights the forward progression without giving absolutes. So instead of “maximizes the efforts” it is “works to increase.” Instead of “towards the achievement of a greater good” it is “in pursuit of a common goal.” 

It’s nuanced, but it’s different.

You might not actually move the needle to the right, and you might not actually finish what you set out to complete, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t leading a team that is trying to do it. It’s the pursuit of the common goal that is important. 

It’s the social influence that is important. It’s inspiring a team to move in a certain direction that is what makes you a leader.

Notice none of this is about managing, hiring, firing, planning, racking, monitoring, or any of the things managers do. 

Managers can do all those things and not inspire anyone to do anything.

Leaders do.

Designers and Leadership

So why is leadership for designers so critical to success? I briefly touched on this a few minutes ago, but remember that UX maturity is pretty abysmal across the board. 

We could probably do an entire episode about UX maturity, but I think it’s worth diving into what this means and why leadership is critical for the success of the UX profession right now.

NN/g has a survey that asks a series of 13 questions that help rank an organization on a scale from 1-6.

1. Absent
2. Limited 
3. Emergent
4. Structured
5. Integrated
6. User-Driven

Absent is just like it sounds, non-existent. They may not even have a concept of what a UX team might do. All the way to User-driven, which is reproducible, habitual, and beloved, basically the UX team is seen as a trusted and proven partner. So they’re taken seriously, basically.

There is a ton to unpack here, so take a look at the show notes for a link to NN/g’s assessment. I think it’s definitely worth reading through the results. And if you have time, take the survey to see where your team stands. It might be really eye-opening.

So where does leadership play into this?

The results. 

Out of the 5,371 UX professionals who responded, half said their organization was in stage 3, emergent. Right in the middle. Functional and promising, yet inconsistent and inefficient. 

The thing that jumps out at me here is “promising.”  There is promise. There is a group of people that are looking for someone to show them the way. They just aren’t there yet.

Half of the organizations of the people that responded are in a relatively good spot in that all they need is someone to lead them to the promised land of “User Driven”

They don’t need managers. They don’t need planners, monitors, or someone to do hiring or firing, they need someone to use social influence to work to increase the efforts of others in the pursuit of a common goal which is user-centered design.

They might not be looking for managers or executives. Or someone to do capacity planning. They need really great UX professionals that can inspire their teams to want to work together to create better software. 

Looking at the rest of the results, 17% fell in the second stage “limited” and 28% fell into the fourth stage “structured.” What’s remarkable and maybe even a little sad is that only 4% fell into the fifth stage of “integrated” and only 0.4% fell into the highest stage of “user-driven”

So what that tells me is there is a HUGE opportunity for us as UX professionals to improve our teams and the way our teams work for the better.

Junior Designers and Leadership

So a lot of you out there are probably saying to yourself: “yeah that’s great, but I’m a junior designer. I am just starting out. How am I supposed to do any of this stuff?”

And to that, I would say you have a lot more to offer than you might think. But also I will be the first to admit that some people just don’t want to be that person. And that is totally fine! You don’t HAVE to be a leader. I think it’s an important skill, but it’s a skill that you can learn over time. 

But if you don’t feel like you’re there yet, the thing that I would ask you is to think about what you want out of your career. Where do you want to be in a few years? What skills do you need to grow? How much do you want to grow? Get a really good idea of your own shortcomings and where you feel like you need support. 

And then think about the teams that you are thinking about joining, or maybe have already joined, and ask yourself “am I in the right spot to grow?”

If you’re in one of those organizations with low UX maturity, and you aren’t in a position where you can or want to influence the change you need to grow, then you need to decide if you are going to stay or find a place where you can grow.

As a junior designer, If you don’t want to take on this responsibility and you just want to do great work. Ask yourself how great your work will be if you continue with the status quo. If you are comfortable with that, great. You are one of the lucky ones. But if you’re not comfortable with it, you should be thinking about how you can change it, or consider leaving and finding a place where you can do great work and be supported. 

You just have to find the right team that will allow you to flourish as an IC with your head down. Those places exist, you just have to look for them.

Individual Contributors and Leadership

So let’s talk about ICs and leadership. You might not be a junior IC, you might be more senior with several years of experience behind you. But you don’t want to be in charge. Remember, do not confuse leadership with managing. These are different.

Some organizations have ICs going up to the same level as VPs or even executive levels. These ICs at these high levels, absolutely without a doubt, need to be great leaders first and foremost. Yes, they need to do great work. Yes, they need to be super badasses at their craft. But they also need to influence decisions. They need to inspire. They need to coach. They need to be examples of how to do great work. 

They might not be making hiring and firing decisions. They might not be doing talent reviews. You might not go to them for a raise. But you should definitely be going to them for advice. You should be going to them for mentorship. You should be looking to them for inspiration.

I want to stress that this is not only true for ICs at a really high level. This should be true, relatively speaking, for ICs at any level. Regardless of your tenure, seniority, title, etc.

ICs are not robots. 

ICs should influence product teams, discuss best practices, help to inform processes, push back when we see things that aren’t right, and give opinions and directions on things we think are important. These are all things ICs should be doing without having any specific title or a written mandate to manage or lead a single person on paper. 

This is not the sole job of a manager. These are the behaviors of a good leader. And I would argue this is the job of an individual contributor too. 

We should not be order takers. We should not be pixel pushers. We should practice critical thought. We should question everything. This is what makes a great individual contributor. 

Let’s talk about leadership behaviors

I think when people throw the word “leadership” around, what they’re really saying is we should act like leaders. We should have the behaviors of good leaders.

These are behaviors that aren’t reserved for people in management or supervisorial roles. Or even reserved for those in positions of authority or seniority. These are behaviors that make good leaders, yes. But these are also behaviors that will make you a truly effective UX designer.

So let’s talk about what some of those behaviors might be.

This is not an exhaustive list. This comes from a few different sources. I’ve kind of rearranged them, relabelled them a bit, and added some that weren’t included. I’ll put some links in the show notes so you can review some of the articles that I referenced and maybe you come up with your own list.

1. Good Communicator
2. Confident
3. Humble
4. Empathetic
5. Has a Mentor/Coach mindset
6. Curious
7. Approachable
8. Critical Thinker
9. Has Grit
10. Has Integrity
11. Put it all together: High Emotional intelligence

Good Communicator

If the main goal of a leader is to use social influence to inspire a team towards a common goal, I’m not sure how you do that without being a good communicator.

I talk a lot about being a great storyteller. Using stories to build empathy and get our teams to want to build the best possible products we can for users. I think it all starts with being able to communicate.

But it goes beyond just influence. We have to be able to give feedback. And again, as a designer, understanding how to give feedback to other designers is critical for our success. 

If our teams are not moving in the direction we think they should be moving, how do we show them the light and get them to move in the right direction if we can’t give feedback on how they should improve, without alienating the entire team?

This goes well beyond just leadership too. Giving feedback, Being able to sell our design decisions. Being able to push for changes in the design tools, or processes our teams follow, all of this comes down to being able to communicate. 

Good communication skills are critical for UX designers to master.

Confident

We have to make sure that what we’re asking of our teams is the right thing to do. Some of this is related to how we communicate to convey confidence, but we have to make sure we’re moving in the right direction. We need to be sure of ourselves, not second guessing every decision we make. No one wants to listen to someone who is constantly changing their mind and going against what they said the week prior. 

Confidence and more importantly, speaking with confidence, are critical skills for UX designers to master.

Humble

While being confident is important, it’s also equally important to understand when you’re wrong and accept it. Changing your mind is fine when you were wrong. It’s really important that we make sure people that work with us also know it is ok to be wrong. Own up to it. Show the rest of your team that it’s ok to fail as long as you learn something from it. Lead by example.

Another aspect of this is not having a big ego. Sure you’re the UX designer. Jane is the PM, and Tim is the engineer. Everyone has a role to play and your job as a UX designer is no more or less important than anyone else on the team.

Having confidence is good, but admitting when you’re wrong is a critical skill for UX designers to master.

Empathetic

Empathy is critical for any UX designer, but it’s also critical for a good leader. Understanding the stress your team is under, understanding where your team is coming from, and understanding why your team is making the decisions they make will only help you to make better decisions. 

We should strive to have empathy not only for users. We need to have empathy for our entire team. Empathy is a critical skill for UX designers to master.

Has a Mentor/Coch Mindset

Yes, you’re a badass at your craft. But great leaders bring everyone else up with them. Working alone in a corner may make you a great designer, but really great leaders and even really great individual contributors know that the software they build is only as good as their weakest team member because at the end of the day you can’t carry poor performers on your back. 

Help them grow. Help them become better. Offer training where you think your team needs it. Help them understand what they’re missing and make everyone as great as you.

Taking a coaching or mentor approach is a critical skill for UX designers to master.

Curious

Really great UX designers understand they don’t have all the answers. They know there is always more to learn. They know there is always more to explore. They always strive to do better and discover what they don’t know. They’re constant students. 

They shut up and they listen.

Really great leaders are no different. They figure out where their blind spots are and they figure out what they need to do to get rid of them. They are constantly exploring new ideas and new ways to approach problems. They are never satisfied with what they know today. They are always looking to grow.

Curiosity is a critical skill for UX designers to master.

Approachable

Pretty much everything we’ve talked about up until now requires working with other people. A good UX designer and a good leader are approachable. 

They have an open-door policy. They are happy to hear feedback. They want to hear what you have to say and they care why you’re saying it. 

Your team needs to know they can come to you with questions without fear of you lashing out or making them feel small. Your team needs to know that when they talk to you they are in a safe place.

Being approachable is a critical skill for UX designers to master.

Critical Thinker

As a UX Designer, you’re going to see a lot of data. You’re going to hear from a lot of people. You’re going to get a lot of opinions. And then you need to take all that data and opinions then synthesize it into a plan of attack. Does that data really tell you what everyone thinks it’s telling you? Or is there more there waiting to be uncovered? 

Our job as UX designers is not to be order takers. I know it doesn’t always feel like that, but truly effective UX designers take all of this in, and then they give their opinions. Or they design based on that feedback. It might not always be what our stakeholders wanted to hear. But still, our job is to think about all of the things we hear and see holistically, and then design the right product for our users. Not our stakeholders.

So, being able to think critically about all the things you see and hear is a critical skill for UX designers to master.

Has Grit

Grit is one of those things that you’re going to have to learn to be successful in life in general. 

But as a UX designer, the fact is that with the state of the software industry today and with UX maturity low overall, you’re going to get told “no” a lot. You’re going to get left out of meetings and important conversations a lot. You are going to get your work picked apart. You are going to be asked to do things that you don’t agree with. You’re going to have to work with people you don’t like or people that don’t like you. You’re going to butt heads with a lot of different types of conflicting personalities.

You have to learn how to deal with these things and move forward. You can’t let these things stop you from moving the needle forward.

Remember that building great software is hard. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

Being able to see the long-term vision and work towards it over a long period of time, not letting challenges, failures, or rejection stop you is a critical skill for UX designers to master.

Has Integrity

Having integrity means you are principled. It means you are ethical and honest. It means you’re reliable. It means your team can count on you. You do what you say. You practice what you preach. It means you’re honest. You accept responsibility when things go south. 

Integrity is one of those things that can be a catchall. It can mean a whole lot of things to different people. But really, this one is important, and it kind of encapsulates several of the things we’ve already talked about here.

Integrity is something that is important inside and outside of work, and while this one is a critical trait for UX designers, this one might be just as important for you to master as a human being.

Putting it all together: High Emotional intelligence

A lot of these traits can really be summarized under the umbrella of emotional intelligence.

I hope that everyone listening is at least somewhat familiar with the concept of Emotional Intelligence. If you’re not, or even if you kind of know what it is, but not really sure, understanding what it is and how to grow your emotional intelligence might be one of the best things you can do for your career. It doesn’t matter what you do, mastering this skill might be one of the most important things you can do to ensure future success.

The term emotional intelligence was created by two researchers, Peter Salavoy and John Mayer in a research paper they published in 1990. Dan Goleman wrote a book in 1995 that started to bring this into the mainstream.

So if you think about it, 1990/1995 was not that long ago. This is really a relatively new concept in the business world. 

We could do an entire episode on this topic alone, but I think it’s worth talking a bit about this here.

Self-awareness. You need to know your strengths and your weaknesses. What are you good at? Where do you need to improve? What can you really do? What do you need help with?

Self-regulation. When you get bad news, how do you react? Do you blow up and yell and scream? Or can you control your emotions and respond in a calm or professional way?

Motivation. What drives you? Are you motivated by more material things like money and power?  Or are you motivated by more internal things? Have you found your “why”? Are you passionate about your work?

Empathy. We’ve talked about empathy a lot already. But are you a good listener? How do you interpret body language and expressions? Are you able to read the room?

Social skills. These skills help build trust and relationships among your team. These can be skills like active listening, verbal and nonverbal communication, and maybe persuasiveness. These things help you connect with your team.

I’ve mentioned this in a previous episode, but Darren Hood has done a whole series on emotional intelligence and how it applies to the UX profession. If you haven’t listened to it, I would highly recommend you give it a go. 

Mastering emotional intelligence is critical for any UX designer, but this is something any profession can benefit from. According to some research studies, people with high emotional intelligence make an average of $29,000 more each year than people with low emotional intelligence. According to one study, every point increase in emotional intelligence adds $1,300 to an annual salary. 

Even if you’re passionate about your work, that’s nothing to shake a stick at.

So, I think it goes without saying, emotional intelligence is critical for UX designers to master.

Putting it into practice

So knowing all of these things are well and good. But how do you actually put it into practice? You might be saying “yeah but I’m not in a position of authority.” Or “I’m so low on the totem pole, who’s going to listen to me?”

To that I’d say, maybe no one will listen to you at first. Remember that trait of “grit we talked about?” This is exactly where it starts.

Lead what you can lead. 

Think about where you are right now. What can you start leading today? Is there some low-level initiative you can try to own? Is there something you’re passionate about and maybe you want to start having your team care about? Is there maybe some group you can start? A craft club or a knitting club? Some kind of professional networking group you can start? 

Start where you can start. Don’t try to boil the ocean. Remember that highly emotionally intelligent people are more likely to be successful in most professional environments. So put these behaviors into practice. Identify areas where you can start to lead, even if it seems relatively small and inconsequential to you at first. 

I promise that people will start to notice and you will start to be given more and more opportunities to lead bigger and better initiatives or projects.

No matter what you want to do, speak up.

Here’s the thing. No one is going to be able to read your mind. If you want more responsibility and you want to more opportunities to lead within your team, you have to speak up. You have to let your manager know. You have to ask. 

I hope by now you’re having regular 1:1s with your manager. This is a great opportunity to ask for help here. Maybe you are ready and you want more responsibility. Maybe you’re not ready and you want some help getting there. You can ask for training or advice on books. If you’re lucky, your company might even offer leadership training. 

Something I want to note here too is that after everything we’ve talked about today you may still want to have no part in it. Maybe you still only want to be heads down. Maybe you still only want to work alone in a corner. Maybe you still don’t want to be bothered with any of this stuff.

That is totally fine! 

Not everyone wants this. Or maybe you want it, just not right now. Maybe you have other things going on and you don’t have time for it. That’s totally fair. This isn’t for everyone, and that’s ok!

For those of you who don’t want any part of this, I have two bits of advice for you.

First, just like before, you need to speak up. You need to set the right expectations that this is what you want. Your manager needs to know what to expect from you and you have to be on the same page. Your manager may be expecting you to do some of these things. But if they know this is not for you, you are setting the right expectations and you can be sure that you are delivering what you are expected to deliver. No more. No less.

Second is that if you do want to be heads down, and you just want to deliver great work, you have to be in the right organization that will support you and still helps you to grow.

Given that UX maturity is so low, getting a job as an IC that has no interest in leading, means you better be damn sure you’re getting in at a company that you are happy with. This might be rare, so make sure you are joining a team that might be more established, has a higher maturity level, and can support ICs with this mindset. 

Personally, I think this might be a challenge, which is why I think these leadership behaviors are so important to master, but I also don’t want to give the impression that it’s impossible. You just have to do your homework.

How do we improve accessibility?

To illustrate everything we’ve talked about, I want to give an example of how these leadership behaviors can be used to move your organization in a positive direction.

Let’s talk about accessibility and inclusive design. I don’t have any hard facts or figures, but from my experience, accessibility and inclusive design are usually pretty low priorities at most organizations. It’s not usually something that is on the top of leadership’s mind when they are making decisions about roadmaps or features, unfortunately.

If we see that accessibility and inclusive design are something our teams are constantly overlooking, as designers, we have a decision to make. We can decide to put our heads down and focus on doing great work, not try to stir the boat. Or we can speak up and try to get our teams to pay more attention to these things.

We can bring this up in conversations with our product team and stakeholders. We might be able to do some kind of presentation on this at an all-hands, or a team meeting. We can start to incorporate it into our designs and sell it when we do design critiques. 

Remember that leading in this regard does not mean you have direct reports and you tell them what to do. Leadership means that we use these skills we’ve talked about to influence our team towards the common goal of improving accessibility and inclusive design within our product. 

It might take a while, but if you can change a few minds at a time, over the course of a few months, you’re trending in a positive direction. I’d argue that’s leadership.

We’re not getting people to change because they are listening to us. We are inspiring them to want to improve these things because they have now an understanding of why it is so important. 

Conversely, let’s say we want to put our heads down and just pump out badass designs. If you really care about accessibility and inclusive design, one might argue that you really aren’t able to pump out badass work in the first place, if your team isn’t taking these things into account. 

So here is where you have to decide if this organization might not be the right fit for you. Are you comfortable with this? Or do you need to leave? That decision is up to you.

Closing

So when you think about leadership and whether this is something you should be worried about, please remember that most companies today won’t know what to do with you as a UX professional. So, unfortunately, like it or not, you need to be the change you want to see. If you want to stay there, you need to lead that organization to change for the better. Even if you aren’t in a position of authority.

Before I get out of here, I want to leave you with some closing words by the great Dolly Parton: 

Helpful Links
• What is Leadership? – Definition, Concept, Importance & Leadership Skills
• 10 Key Leadership Behaviors for Effective Leaders | Indeed.com
• In Search of the Definition of Leadership | Inc.com
• What Makes a Leader? | Inc.com
• The State of UX Maturity: Data from Our Self-Assessment Quiz
• Emotional Intelligence – EQ