Becoming a great leader…

What kind of leader are you?

Most of us don’t stumble into great leadership. It’s not magic, instinct, or pure charisma. It’s something we shape over time—through mistakes, reflection, and a lot of deliberate effort.

One thing that has worked well for me is defining a clear set of principles for the kind of leader I aspire to be, paired with a leadership style that reflects how I want to run teams on a day-to-day basis. It’s given me a north star to return to when things get chaotic, and a personal accountability framework for how I show up.

Have you done this? What would yours look like? How often do you revisit it?

Here are mine—for inspiration or critique:

My Leadership Principles

(Based on Forbes’ Five Basic Principles of Highly Effective Leadership)

Shared vision — A leader’s role is to communicate a vision that aligns and inspires the team and ensures everyone understands and is committed.

Positive culture — Great leaders create a culture of trust, high morale, diversity of thought, and minimal drama. When a leader can create a strong and positive culture, retention is easy. It becomes a place where people want to stay and grow.

Open communication — Clear, open communication is essential. Strong leaders set the tone by providing honest and regular feedback, and they expect the same in return.

People-focused, customer-centric — Leadership is about empowering teams with clarity, confidence, and connection. By helping others grow and succeed, we foster loyalty, drive impact, and create better experiences for customers. Happy teams lead to happy customers. Happy customers lead to a happy balance sheet.

My Leadership Style

Elevate…

• Elevate the Craft — Delivering our best work requires time to sharpen our skills. We must prioritize growth and continuous improvement.

• Elevate the Team — We’re not a family—we choose to be here. Our role is to create an environment where everyone thrives. I’m here to coach and guide, not dictate.

• Elevate the Results — Intuitive design isn’t accidental. We must highlight the effort behind the scenes and consistently demonstrate the ROI of our work.

Empower — Everyone is empowered to own their work from end to end. You are accountable for both successes and failures (and learnings are very different from failures).

Trust — Micromanagement has no place here. We must trust each other to deliver the value we were hired for, creating space for autonomy and innovation.

If you haven’t done this exercise before, I challenge you to take a stab at it. You can build on frameworks you admire (like I did), or create something unique. The goal isn’t to be perfect—it’s to be intentional.

You might be surprised by what comes out when you ask yourself, “What kind of leader do I want to be—and what kind of team do I want to lead?”

That’s where it starts.

Design is now about curation

With AI, design is becoming less about creation—and more about curation.

The tools can generate layouts, suggest flows, write copy, even anticipate user behaviors. But they can’t yet understand nuance. They can’t empathize. They can’t sit with the friction of a user’s experience and ask, “Why does this feel off?”

That’s where the designer comes in.

Great design today isn’t about drawing rectangles or reinventing the UI wheel. It’s about deeply understanding user needs, goals, and workflows—and then curating the right experience to meet them. It’s about removing the unnecessary, sanding down the edges, and guiding the AI’s output into something cohesive, intentional, and usable.

AI might build the pieces. But we still define the puzzle.

Designers are no longer just creators.

Designers are curators.

AI In Your Product: Magic or Transparency

Yes, AI is pretty nifty. But when integrating AI into your product, you have two paths:

One—seamlessly integrate AI into the product, making it feel like magic for the user. The product is smarter, which makes the user feel smarter. Until it isn't. Sometimes, AI things go wonky (technical term, I'm sure), leaving your users frustrated and blaming your product.

Or two—call out that it's powered by AI. However, this could prevent users from trusting your product or make them opt out of using that feature or product altogether.

Which path do you choose? When and why?

The answer, of course, depends on the experience you're designing—and your users' tolerance for unpredictability.

If your AI feature is additive—something that enhances but doesn't make or break the core workflow—magic might be the way to go. Think auto-tagging content, generating a first draft, or suggesting an action. The risk is low, the payoff is high, and when it works, it feels delightful. When it doesn't, users can easily course-correct.

But if the AI is critical to success—driving decisions, surfacing key insights, or replacing a human task—it might be better to show your work. Users want to understand what's happening under the hood. They want transparency, clarity, and sometimes even a little control. Acknowledge the AI, set expectations, and design affordances that allow users to review, edit, or override as needed.

There's also a third path: contextual transparency. You don't need a flashing "AI did this" badge on every screen—but you can signal it thoughtfully. A well-placed tooltip, a short explainer on first use, or subtle visual cues that communicate what's automated versus manual. Transparency without fear. Trust without overwhelm.

Ultimately, it comes down to trust, clarity, and control. Not just what the AI does—but how you help the user understand what just happened, what they can do about it, and whether they feel empowered or undermined by the experience.

Because the real magic isn't that AI is in your product. It's when your user still feels in charge—even when they're not.

Why Most Design Hiring Fails (and How to Fix It)

Hiring great designers is one of the hardest challenges in UX leadership. On paper, a candidate might check all the boxes—solid portfolio, impressive resume, glowing references—but once they’re in the seat, things don’t always work out. Why? Because most design hiring processes are broken in ways that set both the company and the candidate up for failure.

Here’s what’s going wrong—and how to fix it.

1. Prioritizing Portfolios Over Thinking

A stunning portfolio is great, but it doesn’t tell you how a designer thinks. Too many hiring teams over-index on polished visuals without understanding the problem-solving process behind the work.

Fix: Prioritize case studies that show a candidate’s reasoning, constraints, trade-offs, and impact. In interviews, have them walk through a past project and focus on why they made certain choices—not just what they made.

2. Ignoring Team Fit and Collaboration

A designer doesn’t work in a vacuum. If they can’t collaborate effectively with PMs, engineers, researchers, and stakeholders, their work won’t drive impact—no matter how good they are individually.

Fix: Assess collaboration and communication skills. Ask about past experiences working cross-functionally. Consider a time-boxed working session where they solve a problem with your team to see their real-world approach. This does not mean give them a take-home assignment.

3. Overvaluing “Culture Fit” (and Under-Valuing “Culture Add”)

Many hiring managers unconsciously look for designers who feel familiar—people who match the existing team’s style, background, or personality. This leads to homogeneity and missed opportunities to strengthen the team’s perspective.

Fix: Instead of “culture fit,” assess what a candidate adds to the team. Do they bring a different way of thinking? A new skill set? A perspective your team lacks? These are strengths, not risks.

4. Testing for the Wrong Skills

Whiteboard challenges and design exercises can be useful—but only if they reflect the actual work the designer will be doing. Too often, hiring processes rely on hypothetical exercises that reward speed and confidence over depth and critical thinking.

Fix: Design exercises should be relevant to the role. If the job involves deep systems thinking, test for that. If it’s about rapid iteration, structure the challenge accordingly. Avoid unnecessary stress tests that don’t map to real work.

5. Lack of Clear Expectations for the Role

If you ask five different people on the hiring panel what they’re looking for in a designer, you’ll often get five different answers. Without alignment, you end up with an inconsistent and unclear hiring process.

Fix: Define success before you start hiring. What problems will this designer be expected to solve? What skills matter most? What will they be measured on? Get clear internally before assessing candidates. Each interviewer should be assessing specific skills of the candidate.

6. Not Selling the Role and Team

Great designers have options. If your interview process is all about evaluating them but not showing them why your team is a great place to work, they’ll go elsewhere.

Fix: Hiring is a two-way street. Be intentional about showing what makes your team unique, the kind of work they’ll be doing, and the impact they can have. Make sure they leave excited about the opportunity.

7. Relying Too Much on Gut Feel

Hiring based on “I have a good feeling about this person” is a fast track to bias-driven hiring mistakes. Your gut might be useful, but it shouldn’t be the primary decision-making factor.

Fix: Use structured interviews with defined criteria. Make sure every interviewer evaluates candidates against the same key skills and qualities. Balance intuition with evidence.

8. Failing to Provide a Good Candidate Experience

A messy or disorganized hiring process can drive away top talent. Long delays, unclear expectations, or lack of feedback all create a negative impression—and the best candidates won’t wait around.

Fix: Make sure your hiring process is well-structured, timely, and respectful of candidates’ time. Even if they’re not the right fit, leave them with a positive experience of your company.

9. Neglecting Onboarding and Growth

Hiring a designer is just the beginning. If they’re left to sink or swim with no support, they won’t reach their full potential—or worse, they’ll leave.

Fix: Have a clear onboarding plan that sets them up for success. Assign mentors, set early goals, and provide growth opportunities. Great designers stay where they feel supported and challenged.

Final Thoughts

Hiring the right designers isn’t about luck—it’s about having a process that identifies not just great designers, but the right designers for your team. You design team makeup should reflect your user base to ensure the types of solutions delivered are the types of solutions needed. By focusing on problem-solving, collaboration, structured evaluation, and a great candidate experience, you’ll build a stronger, more effective design team.

What’s been the biggest challenge in your design hiring process? Let’s discuss.

How I assess a new design team

Stepping into a new design leadership role can be both exciting and nerve-racking. You've inherited a team—maybe one that's thriving, maybe one that's struggling—but either way, your job is to understand the current state of the team and chart a path forward. It's easy to jump straight into fixing things based on your past experiences. But before making any big changes, you need a clear picture of the business and the team, how things got to be the way things are, and the expectations of your role.

Here's how I would systematically assess a design team so you can lead with clarity and confidence and smash your goals.

Understand the Business and Team Goals

Before you evaluate the team, it's crucial to understand what they're working towards. Teams don’t exist without having specific business goals. What are the company's short and long-term objectives? How does the design function contribute to those goals? If design isn't seen as a strategic player, why not? If design isn't a competitive advantage, why not? Understanding this will help you make informed decisions and effectively lead your team.

Spend time with product, engineering, and business stakeholders to get the big picture. Dig in to understand how design is measured, if at all. If it isn't, start defining what success should look like. A design team without a clear purpose will struggle to have an impact—your first job is ensuring alignment on why the team exists.

Define Expectations—of You & Your Team

A common mistake new leaders make is assuming they already know what's expected of them. Maybe you were hired to scale the team, build a design culture, or drive measurable improvements in product experience. However, expectations vary widely between companies and even between leaders within the same company.

Ask the hard questions:

• What does success in this role look like after six months? A year?

• Are there specific metrics?

• What did my predecessor do well? Where did they struggle?

• What gaps or weaknesses does leadership believe exist in the design team today?

• What questions do I need to answer?

At the same time, clarify what's expected of your team. Are they seen as execution partners, strategic thinkers, or somewhere in between? Understanding this will help you assess whether the team's current skill sets match the expectations placed on them.

Talk to Key Leaders & Stakeholders

You don't want to build a team in a silo. Strong design teams operate at the intersection of product, engineering, marketing, and business strategy—so their success is directly tied to how well they’re involved and collaborate with others.

Set up 1:1s with leaders across the organization. The goal isn't just to hear what they want from design but to understand where friction exists:

• Do they feel like design is a trusted partner or an afterthought?

• What's working well in the current collaboration model? What isn't?

• How do they see design's role evolving in the company?

Patterns will emerge quickly. If multiple leaders express frustration with slow design cycles or misalignment with product strategy, those are signals to pay attention to.

Map Skills for Team’s Success

Once you have clarity on business needs and stakeholder expectations, it's time to evaluate your team's capabilities. A great design team isn't just a collection of talented individuals—it's a balanced system of complementary skills.

Start by listing out the critical skills your team needs to be successful. These might include:

• Product Thinking: Do designers deeply understand user needs and business impact?

• Visual & Interaction Design: Is the craft strong across all touchpoints?

• UX Research & Data Literacy: Are insights driving decisions, or is design operating on assumptions?

• Collaboration & Influence: Can the team work effectively across functions?

• Execution & Delivery: Are designs making it into production efficiently? Or at all?

Review Past Work

A team's past work tells you a lot about their strengths, weaknesses, and where they've been focusing their energy. Look at:

• Recent product launches and their impact

• Design artifacts like UX flows, prototypes, and research reports

• How design decisions were made and documented

Pay attention to patterns. If the team produces beautiful UI but lacks user insights, research might be an area to strengthen. If work is strategic but slow to ship, process and collaboration could need attention.

Get to Know the Team—Individually & Collectively

Beyond the work itself, you need to understand the people behind it. Set up 1:1s with every designer, researcher, content strategist, etc. The goal is to learn what motivates them, where they thrive, and what's been frustrating them. This open communication will build ongoing trust and help build a positive team culture. If you build the relationship now, it'll help the team accept and understand any future changes.

Some good questions to ask:

• What do you love most about your work here?

• What's the biggest challenge you face day to day?

• Where do you want to grow in the next year?

• What's one thing you'd change about how this team works?

You'll start seeing gaps—some might feel stuck in execution mode; others might be hungry for leadership opportunities. This insight will help you shape a team culture where people can do their best work.

Map Skills and Passions to Team's Needs

After your 1:1s, take your skills map and start mapping individuals onto it. Who's already strong in key areas? Who has potential but needs mentorship? Where do you have glaring gaps?

This is where passion comes into play. Just because someone is skilled in an area doesn't mean that person wants to focus on it long-term. Ideally, people's strengths and interests align with what the team needs—but when they don't, you'll need a plan to either develop new skills internally or hire for them.

Identify Gaps & Build a Plan

Now that you've got the whole picture, it's time to act. Are there missing skill sets that require hiring? Are certain processes slowing the team down? Are there cultural or structural issues holding people back?

Your next steps might include:

• Hiring to fill skill gaps

• Mentoring team members to step into new roles

• Changing collaboration models to work better with product and engineering

• Introducing better design systems, workflows, or research practices

But don’t forget your stakeholders. Check-in with them to ensure your observation and plans make sense. Sometimes the path forward is bumpy, and they need to be sold on the journey as well as the final destination.

Final Thoughts

Assessing a design team isn't about judging individual performance—it's about understanding the system as a whole. Your job as a leader is to set the team up for success by aligning their skills, motivations, and workflows with the needs of the business.

It's tempting to make big changes right away. Instead, take the time to listen, observe, and map out a thoughtful approach. Once you have a clear picture, you can make informed decisions that strengthen the team rather than disrupt it.

So before you start changing things, start learning. The best way to lead a design team is to understand it first.