Hiring someone with no domain experience might be the smartest hire you make

We’re taught to hire for expertise. For familiarity. But lately, I’m seeing the opposite unlock better outcomes.

When you bring in someone with no baggage—just raw problem-solving skills and a beginner’s mindset—they question everything. They notice friction others accept. They redesign from first principles.

And more often than not? That leads to simpler, smarter solutions your users actually love.

Leadership Principles: The Invisible Operating System Behind Great Leaders

Table of Contents

• Why leadership principles?

• Develop your leadership principles with AI

• The Prompt

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Why Leadership Principles?

When things go sideways and the pressure is on, the time is tight, and the stakes are high, leaders don’t rise to the occasion. They fall to the level of their principles.

Leadership principles are not corporate fluff. They’re operating systems for how a leader thinks, decides, and behaves under pressure. In fast-moving environments, where ambiguity is constant and stakes are high, clear leadership principles create consistency, speed, and trust.

“Principles are ways of successfully dealing with reality to get what you want out of life.”

— Ray Dalio

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.

They turn instinct into alignment

Every leader has instincts. The problem is, instinct doesn’t scale. It lives in your head. It works when you’re in the room. But as your team grows, gut calls and “it just feels right” stop being enough.

Leadership principles take that instinct—the years of experience, the pattern recognition, the hard-won judgment—and translate it into something others can use.

Without them, decisions get stuck. People hesitate. Teams second-guess. You spend your time re-explaining how you think instead of moving forward.

With clear principles in place, your team can understand your logic, not just your conclusions. Even when they disagree with the outcome, they get why it happened. That builds alignment, not resentment.

For example, Amazon’s “Customer Obsession” principle doesn’t just sound good. It gives every team a shared lens for making hard trade-offs, like walking away from short-term wins to protect long-term trust.

This kind of clarity isn’t just helpful—it’s strategic. When teams share your mental model, they can act faster, argue better, and stay pointed in the same direction—even in the face of ambiguity or conflict.

Leadership principles externalize your judgment so it becomes collective wisdom. It’s not about making everyone agree—it’s about ensuring they’re aligned on what matters, and why.

They scale without cloning you

As a leader, you set the tone—but you can’t be everywhere. You can’t sit in every meeting, weigh in on every decision, or personally approve every detail.

That’s where leadership principles come in. They act as surrogates for your judgment, not by forcing people to mimic your style, but by giving them clarity on how you think.

The goal isn’t to create mini-yous. That doesn’t scale. The goal is to create alignment: to help your team make confident decisions that reflect your standards, even when you’re not in the room.

“What would Richard do?” isn’t about imitation. It’s about internalizing the principles I use to decide.

With strong principles in place, your team doesn’t need constant oversight. They know the boundaries. They understand the trade-offs you care about. They’re empowered to act. Not because they’re guessing what you’d want, but because they’ve internalized the logic behind how you lead.

This is how you scale without bottlenecking. It’s how you grow a team that moves fast, owns outcomes, and makes decisions you can trust, without burning out or hovering.

When done right, leadership principles create autonomy without chaos. Direction without micromanagement. And influence that multiplies instead of dilutes.

They turn culture into action

Too often, companies throw around vague values like “integrity” or “innovation.” But without specifics, those words don’t mean much. They don’t guide action. They don’t resolve conflict. And they definitely don’t scale.

Leadership principles turn values into concrete behaviors—the kind you can see in a meeting, hear in a 1:1, or reference in a performance review.

For example:

• “We make the invisible visible” → We proactively share work, not just finished products.

• “Assume good intent” → We seek understanding before judgment.

• “No pixel gets left behind” → We sweat the details, even when no one’s looking.

These aren’t just slogans. They’re tools. Teams use them to give feedback, justify trade-offs, and align around quality—without waiting for top-down directives.

When principles are lived, not laminated, culture becomes self-enforcing. New hires pick it up quickly. Veterans reinforce it naturally. And the organization becomes more consistent, even as it grows.

They create safety and speed

When deadlines loom with high stakes but little details—most teams slow down. They get cautious. They look for sign-off. They wait for certainty that never comes.

That’s where leadership principles become essential. They provide pre-agreed shortcuts for how to act when things aren’t obvious.

Instead of freezing up or asking for permission, teams move forward with confidence because they’re not guessing what’s “right.” They’re guided by principles everyone already understands.

• “Default to candor, not consensus” → We speak plainly, even when uncomfortable.

• “Always be ready to share” → We keep work in a state that’s clear, polished, and reviewable.

• “Act like an owner” → We don’t punt decisions we’re qualified to make.

These kinds of principles do more than just speed up execution. They create psychological safety because people know the rules of engagement. They know what’s expected. They know what won’t get them punished.

And when people feel safe, they speak up sooner. They take initiative. They ask the hard questions before it’s too late. In that environment, trust builds fast, and with trust, speed naturally follows.

Leadership principles aren’t rigid rules. They’re mental defaults that reduce hesitation and emotional friction, especially when the clock is ticking and there’s no time to phone a friend.

They can evolve with you

Leadership principles aren’t set in stone. They’re snapshots of who you are right now. As you grow, your principles should grow with you.

Early on, they might be tactical:

• “Done is better than perfect.”

• “Be the most prepared person in the room.”

These help you move fast, earn trust, and build credibility. But as you level up, what matters starts to shift. You go from managing tasks to shaping systems. From leading projects to leading people. From execution to impact.

And your principles follow suit:

• “Be the most prepared” might become “Create clarity for others.”

• “Move fast” might evolve into “Prioritize for durability.”

• “Ask for feedback” could become “Build a culture of reflection.”

Each revision reflects not just new responsibilities, but a deeper understanding of your own blind spots, values, and impact. They become a living document of your leadership maturity.

More importantly, evolving your principles signals your team that growth is expected, not just for them, but for you. It gives them permission to examine their own instincts and adapt with intention, not just experience.

If your principles haven’t changed in years, it’s worth asking: Have you?

Great leaders treat their principles like great companies treat their products: constantly iterated, pressure-tested in the real world, and refined with feedback.

Because leadership isn’t static, and neither is your operating system.

Final Thought

Leadership principles are not about being liked or looking smart. They’re about creating clarity so you can scale yourself, empower others, and build a team that outperforms you.

Without leadership principles…

• You react based on mood, bias, or politics

• Your team second-guesses your decisions

• Culture is inconsistent and leader-dependent

• People get promoted for the wrong reasons

• You burn out solving the same problems over and over

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Develop Your Leadership Principles with AI

Developing your own leadership principles used to take a lot of time thinking, writing, re-writing, thinking, ..you get it. However, with AI, things can be done much quicker with similar results.

Reflections On Leadership

Follow these prompts, then add the answers in the corresponding sections in the prompt below.

1. Reflect on Healthy Teams

Capture traits or actions about past teams you’ve been on, or seen working, that you admire. Think back to a team you were part of or worked with that worked exceptionally well. It could be from a past job, a volunteer group, or even a sports team. What did people do that made things click? How did they communicate? How were decisions made? What behaviors stood out as rare or admirable? How did they handle setbacks, disagreements, or deadlines?

• …

2. Reflect On Leaders You Want to Emulate

Capture leaders, and the things you appreciate about them. Think of great thought leaders you admire that you might recommend to a friend or colleague. For each one, describe the specific actions, behaviors, habits, or outcomes that have inspired you, something they modeled that you try to emulate, or wish more leaders did. What behaviors, mindsets, or decisions stood out?

• …

3. Reflect On Things To Avoid

Capture your anti-principles—things you want to avoid. Think of past teams, leaders, or work cultures that frustrated or demotivated you. What behaviors or patterns do you never want to be part of again? What do you want to avoid in your own leadership or team culture?

• …

Iterate with AI

Now, take these answers, put them in the appropriate sections of the prompt below, and run them. I tested this on ChatGPT, but you’d benefit from using any LLM you prefer, as it likely has a preference and some memory about you that is already stored.

At the end of the prompt, there will be a few questions to help you reflect and iterate on the principles generated. If any of those questions stir up new ideas, add them to the prompt and run it again. Keep this up until you’re satisfied with the output.

The prompt will purposely generate more principles than necessary. Some will resonate with you, others won’t. Pare the list down until you have something that feels right. You can continue to work with AI by asking it to merge multiple principles or split one to be more specific.

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The Prompt

At the start of a response, create a summary table at the beginning, if appropriate and helpful to answer the question. Provide a maximally detailed answer with multiple levels of depth. Use detailed examples, facts, and figures. Be comprehensive and detailed by using bulleted answers where appropriate. After a response, provide 5 follow-up questions. Format Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. in bold, and put them in a bulleted list. Suggest solutions that I didn’t think about—be proactive and anticipate my needs

Be opinionated rather than neutral when appropriate. Consider new technologies and contrarian ideas, not just the conventional wisdom. You may use high levels of speculation or prediction, just flag it for me. No need to mention your knowledge cutoff. No need to disclose you're an AI.

I want you to work as a leadership coach and team strategist. Embody the writings and wisdom of Simon Sinek, Patrick Lencioni, Daniel Pink, and similar thought leaders.

I want you to assist me in distilling my own personal leadership principles that will be used to help me build and run empowered teams and deliver meaningful business results. Use the insights below and generate 5 to 10 leadership principles and a brief explanation about each one. Principles should be short and easy to memorize. Use alliteration, rhythm, or visual metaphors to make them stick where possible. Explanations can be as long as needed.

Here are the team traits and characteristics I’d like to develop or incorporate in my team:

• <<insert your notes from item #1>>

Here are a few leaders I admire, and the parts I admire about them. Search all your resources to find more information, insights, and quotes from these leaders and incorporate them where possible in the leadership principles you develop.

• <<insert your notes from item #2>>

Lastly, these are traits or behaviors I want to avoid in my team. Ensure these are not included in the principles, or create principles that explicitly denounce or avoid these traits:

• <<insert your notes from item #3>>

Design Leaders Must Prioritize Time with Customers

Design leaders: If you haven’t talked to a user in the past two weeks, you’re cooked.

As design leaders assume more responsibility, one thing often falls through the cracks: direct connection with the user.

It’s understandable. Your calendar is packed. You’re thinking about hiring, team morale, headcount plans, design systems, research roadmaps, cross-functional alignment, showing impact—the list never ends.

But here’s the truth: If you’re not deeply connected to the user’s challenges, none of it matters.

Most design leaders think the job is running a design team. It’s not. Your job is staying obsessed with user problems.

You were put in this position to solve problems. Real ones. You were probably promoted into your position because you’re really good at solving user problems. But if you drift too far from those problems, you risk leading a team that is active but ineffective—busy, but not impactful.

Success Tracks Directly to Time with Users

Want clarity on what matters? Want to empower your team to focus? Want to show meaningful business impact?

Spend more time with users.

It’s that simple. Staying close to their frustrations, goals, and realities gives you the clearest line of sight into what your team should build—and why. It’s how you avoid chasing vanity projects and start delivering real value.

If your team is always shipping but it’s hard to articulate the impact, chances are you’re solving problems that don’t matter. And the fix? Time with users.

How to Stay Close to Users (Even When You’re Busy)

Here are practical ways to build a consistent user connection into your leadership routine:

💬 Executive Sponsorships

If your company assigns executive sponsors to major accounts, ensure you’re included in the rotation. These relationships offer a high-fidelity line to customer needs, especially for strategic, high-value users. If your org doesn’t do this yet, advocate for it—it’s a game-changer.

🧠 Sit in on Discovery Research

Not just validation. Discovery. You want raw, unfiltered user pain. Shadow your research team on calls or listen to recordings. Ask to be looped in on early-stage work where users talk about goals, frustrations, and context, not just how they’re responding to a prototype.

🆘 Listen to Support Calls

Customer support is a goldmine of insight. Join live support sessions or watch call recordings. You’ll hear the real pain points in users’ own words—and start to notice repeat patterns fast.

🎧 Join the Support Rotation

If your company allows it, work a shift. Triage tickets. Answer chats. Escalate bugs. It’s humbling—and enlightening. You’ll quickly see the delta between what you thought users struggled with and what they experience every day.

💼 Sit In on Sales Demos

Sales calls give you the unvarnished first impression. What makes people lean in? Where do they get confused? What promises are being made? You’ll understand how your product lands with new users and how your brand story is being told.

📹 Watch User Call Recordings (But Don’t Stop There)

This is the easiest path—but the least rich. Recordings are helpful, but they lack nuance and depth. You can’t probe or dig deeper. Use them as a supplement, not a substitute.

🔑 Tip: Not sure where to begin? Talk to your heads of Research and Customer Support/Success. They can plug you in right away.

So… How Much Time Should You Spend?

Let’s look at the math.

One 30-minute user call per week? That’s 1.25% of your workweek. That’s not enough. Your calendar reflects your values—whether you like it or not.

Years ago, John Chambers (former Cisco CEO) said something that stuck with me:

“Show me your calendar, and I’ll show you what you value.”

He’s right.

If understanding user needs is at the core of your team’s success (and it is), then you need to block meaningful time for it.

I recommend aiming for 20% of your time.

That’s about 8 hours a week, spent actively listening to and learning from your users.

Is that a lot? Sure. But so is the cost of working on the wrong things.

Final Thought

Being a design leader means you’re no longer just shaping pixels—you’re shaping what gets prioritized, why it matters, and how your team makes an impact.

And the only way to do that well… is to stay close to the people you’re building for.

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.

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.