The existential practice of design leadership
On values, courage, and the horizon beyond the ladder
There’s a certain vibe of exhaustion settling over our industry right now—a malaise born from watching design regress from strategic partnership to pixel production, from problem-solving to prompt-following. As AI reshapes our craft & organizations scramble to ship whatever they can label “intelligent,” I find myself returning to a fundamental question:
What does it mean to lead through this transition of deep change?
When I reflect on those crucial moments of design leadership where I was really tested, they were predominantly situations of values being contested—those of the organization or industry at-large versus those I hold dearly myself. These weren’t abstract philosophical debates happening in conference rooms. They were visceral, immediate conflicts: Was what I sincerely believed in being acknowledged at all in the face of some policy, executive fiat, or the desperate ego of someone trying to “be the decider”? Were my values being hijacked, sabotaged, or simply ignored? 🤔
I bore scars (for lack of a better term) from these encounters that certainly aged me in many ways — I mean, my beard is whiter than ever! 😅 But I also walked away stronger & wiser, a bit more attuned to the ways of the world. Each collision taught me something essential about the nature of leadership itself—lessons that feel particularly urgent as we navigate this current regression.
Beyond the ladder’s false promise
Becoming a leader is more than “climbing the ladder” to achieve a certain accomplishment or reach a position of pay, title, and presumed respect and visibility in the organization. I firmly believe anyone can be a leader—a junior designer, too!
I’ve seen well-intentioned folks who climbed but never truly led—checking boxes, projecting facades of rank and power, mistaking elevation for leadership. They confused altitude with aptitude, position with purpose. That’s not leadership. That’s just rote organizational theater. 🤨 Not good.
True leadership is a phase-change into something else that the organization didn’t realize it needed, but you always knew was necessary because the situation demanded it. No promotion required. It’s about stepping outside of yourself to see the possibilities beyond the immediate horizon, then taking ownership for your actions to compel others to see that new horizon—through speech, artifacts, facilitation, through whatever medium carries your conviction forward. 🙌🏽
The active practice of ownership
Being a leader means you’re actively owning your identity, agency, and the space to galvanize others around you. This ownership isn’t passive or theoretical—it’s an active, daily practice that demands everything you’ve got. It’s not easy!
It’s never really easy, as it takes more than an iota of courage, humility, and a willingness to fail forward. But let me be clear: It’s not about being bombastic or doing bold, foolish things. There’s an essential element of forethought, diligence, and sensing the moment as well. Read the room. Find and tap into that window of opportunity. Know when to push and when to pause. It’s really more of an artful balance of sensing & responding to the moment as it unfolds…
Often, being a leader is quietly stewarding with consistency, clarity, and purpose so that others sense it too. They know you’re on the right path and want to support you. That’s the followership a leader builds—not through fancy spectacle but through earnest, regular hard work and an eye looking out towards the horizon. 🌅
The existential & the practical
This is where design leadership becomes both deeply existential, and yet also intensely practical. The existential part is about wrestling with those value conflicts, about maintaining your north star when the organization’s compass spins wildly toward the latest trend or executive whim.
It’s about asking yourself daily: What do I stand for? What will I not compromise? What future am I designing toward?
The practical part is in the daily work of translation—taking that existential clarity and making it actionable, visible, shareable. It’s in the frameworks you create, the conversations you facilitate, the moments you choose to push back or push forward. It’s in recognizing that inspiration without execution is just philosophy, while execution without inspiration is just labor.
Leading through the fracture
As our industry fractures under the weight of its own regression—as we watch designers reduced from strategic thinkers to pixel polishing assistants, as AI promises everything while understanding nothing about the human condition—the need for this kind of leadership becomes more acute. Imperative. Critical. ⚡️
When markets shift overnight, strategies crumble mid-quarter, and AI promises to reinvent everything by Tuesday—what’s your compass? Not the heroic leader archetype. Not the perfect strategy deck. Not waiting for cultural alignment.
It’s about resilience through multi-lateral thinking amid mind-blowing change.
The design leaders who’ll define the next era aren’t the ones imposing some grandiose singular vision. They’re the ones who can navigate the rhetorical dimensions of organizational change—understanding that “transformation” means very different things to engineering, sales, and your CEO. They’re the ones who can make decisions while holding multiple frameworks simultaneously, without collapsing into convenient relativism. 🙃
The architectonic challenge
Here’s what makes this moment particularly difficult: organizational dynamics, leadership, and strategy are colliding constantly—severely disruptive, traumatizing, with compounding effects. And they’re speaking different philosophical languages. The conflict isn’t between right or wrong strategies, but between incommensurable ways of understanding what strategy even means. 😬
The designers who thrive won’t be the ones who master “exquisite” pixel polishing and AI tools or find some “perfect” career framework. They’ll be the ones who can operate architectonically—building flexible bridges between incompatible worldviews while maintaining their own integrity.
That’s the new central task in these fractured times.
This architectonic work is what separates leadership from management, vision from hallucination. We need leaders who can see beyond the immediate scramble to ship AI features. Leaders who understand that “move fast and break things” is catastrophic when what you’re breaking is trust, context, and human connection. Leaders who can articulate why design matters precisely when everyone seems to have forgotten.
Note: This is not about resisting change or clinging to old ways.
It’s about maintaining the courage to insist that new tools serve human needs rather than the other way around. It’s about remembering that leadership isn’t granted by title or algorithm—it’s earned through the daily practice of seeing further, caring deeper, and pulling others toward a horizon worth reaching.
Those scars I mentioned earlier? They’re not wounds to hide. They’re proof of standing for something when standing was costly. In these fraught, fractious times, that might be the most essential qualification for leadership we have. 😔🙏🏽
What values are you defending in your corner of this fractured landscape? What horizon are you helping others see?
This piece truely made me think! I really felt that part about values being contested, especially with AI changing everything so fast. It's tough when you're fighting for what you believe in. Your honesty about the "scars" and how it "aged" you is incredibly insightful. So well put.