Crafting Clarity: The Design Leadership Playbook
Introduction
“Designers want to make everything perfect. Just make it good enough!” The room fell into a stunned silence as a graphic design manager shared her perspective on how designers could contribute to an organization’s success. For many designers, the phrase “good enough” feels like a betrayal of their craft. Beneath this tension lies a deeper issue: a widespread misunderstanding of the true value of design. As Steve Jobs famously said, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works” (Walker, 2003). The real challenge—and opportunity—for designers is to demonstrate their value by solving meaningful problems and driving important outcomes. This is the essence of Design Leadership.
Before we dive in, let’s address a common misconception: leadership isn’t about a title or position on the corporate hierarchy. It’s an approach—a mindset—towards your work and your relationship with the organization. Early in my career, I believed my job was simple: attend meetings and complete whatever tasks were assigned. Promotions, I thought, were like a game: play the level, beat the boss, and get a power-up. But here’s the catch—there are no levels, and there’s no single boss you need to defeat.
Leadership isn’t about a title or position on the corporate hierarchy. It’s an approach—a mindset—towards your work and your relationship with the organization.
At the heart of this misunderstanding is what I call The Assignment. Assignments provide a sense of calm and certainty: complete the task, get an approving nod, and maybe even a pat on the back during your annual review. But rigidly adhering to Assignment-based design won’t necessarily bring you closer to a promotion—or fulfill your potential. To grow as a designer, we need to shift our thinking.
Sticking to Assignment-based design leads to a tedious existence. How many of these soul-sucking obstacles have you experienced?
- Designing for yourself instead of for people who use the product
- A flood of opinions that overwhelm the team and shift project goals daily
- Users’ goals are drowned out under the roar of stakeholders’ feature requirements
- The engineering team doesn’t buy in to the direction
- Setting up arbitrary deadlines
- Endless scope creep
- Reliance on QA to find and fix usability and adoption problems
- Emphasis on output over outcomes
If any of this resonates, I want to invite you on a journey to discover how to leave behind the drudgery of The Assignment and become a design leader. Are you in?
Here’s what we’ll explore in this series:
- Strategy – Step one in becoming a design leader is to think strategically about your role as a designer. Start with “why?” What outcomes do your stakeholders want to drive?
- Clarity – Cut through the noise and create a vision that rallies your team toward clear, near-term goals.
- Discover the Critical Problems – With countless fires to fight, how do you identify which to tackle and which to let burn?
- Help Others be Valuable – Design Leadership isn’t a solo effort. Understanding relational dynamics is essential for a project’s success.
- Assess. Plan. Act. – We’ll break down Cooper Design’s framework for embedding design leadership into your daily work.
Design leadership isn’t about waiting for the next Assignment to come your way. It’s about facing challenges head-on, solving problems with intention, and driving outcomes that matter. This series will untangle the concept of design leadership and equip you with practical strategies to overcome common challenges. Ready to stop waiting and start leading? Let’s get started.
References
Walker, R. (2003, November 30). The Guts of a New Machine. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/the-guts-of-a-new-machine.html
