Leadership
Great leaders are multipliers, creating the space and the support for teams to do their best work and release their superpowers. Research and design leaders should know how to inspire and make creative space for teams, while removing barriers and creating processes and programs that keep team members doing what they do best.
The best leaders work well on every level of research and design, from understanding the big picture, aligning with business strategy and communicating to stakeholders to obsessing over customer needs, wicked design problems, communication with impact and pixel perfect designs.
Research and design leaders have to balance many things. They need to have a wealth of experience and knowledge but still know that there is much to be learned. They need to be constantly curious. Some describe this as "strong opinions, loosely held" but strong opinions can quieten voices. The key trait is humility: being happy or even excited to have your mind changed or iterate on an idea with others and see it grow.
Here are my top 3 key elements to successful UX leadership:
Vision
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Strategy
Understanding the importance of placing a flag in the future of where you want to be, even if you don't know exactly how you'll get there.
Building a design strategy that combines customer, business and technical needs and takes into account the whole customer journey from brand and marketing to design and development. Prioritizing all projects and new ideas against delivering that strategy. Constantly validating the strategy and knowing when to evolve and pivot.
Team
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Culture
The key is leading with empathy, understanding working styles and seeing the spark in everyone. Knowing that a team is more than the sum of all parts and that both individualism and cohesion are key: the ability to collaborate well but be given space to be yourself and work in the way that suits you best.
Prioritizing culture as a way to ensure product success, making time for remote teams to connect in the way that works for them and supporting open, kind and collaborative dialogue with the team and partners.
Operations
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Execution
Taking the right amount of time to step back and set up lightweight systems, processes and tools that help teams become more efficient and focus on the important tasks. Ensuring that communication channels are set up and expectations are managed and everyone feels empowered.
Coordinating with partner teams to make sure the UX process dovetails with the development process to help gain momentum and speed teams towards customer wins.