LEADING PEOPLE
“Design leadership is about fostering a sense of team and support, creating a culture with a sense of ownership and autonomy … and helping people aspire to their next role and giving them the support to do that.”
To advance design maturity, effective design leadership creates a culture and environment where people are engaged, well supported, and can collaborate effectively with their peers to perform their roles well. This quadrant focuses on the Designers who perform design activities, the cross-functional teams that are involved in the design process, and the wider community that supports design within the organisation.
Level 1: DESIGNERS (Micro)
A Design leaders responsibility to other designers is to nurture a healthy and engaging culture of safety, excellence, growth, and curiosity to enable them to do their best work. Leaders create this culture by ensuring Designers have a clear understanding in what is expected of them and the right skills and knowledge to perform their role effectively. This includes providing clear, actionable feedback, helping to identify areas for personal and career growth, providing development pathways and opportunities through channels of learning and support, and by offering guidance, coaching and mentorship.
Level 2: CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS (Meso)
The cross-functional teams that collaborate with designers are paramount to the success of delivering a design outcome. Design leaders amplify the work that these teams do by fostering a culture with a sense of ownership and autonomy, embedding a mindset of testing and learning from customers, providing clear expectations and understanding of what design is and what to expect from Designers, and ensuring that they have the correct level of design support.
Level 3: COMMUNITY (Macro)
Design leaders enable transformation at scale by raising awareness and advocating for design amongst wider audiences in the organisation, and building supportive communities of practice that value design thinking. Evangelizing design and design methods improves the overall literacy and fluency of design across different areas of the organisation and enables others to engage more effectively with design. This is often achieved through regular sharing, showcasing, and education for non-design practitioners.