Through my exchanges with y’all, I know many of you want your product and design work to truly make an impact, and that commitment shows. But for a lot of designers, there’s a hard truth: the habits that made you a strong designer are not the same ones that make you an effective design leader.
Design leadership asks for a different set of patterns that require understanding how and why the business makes decisions.
The single biggest way to create design impact is to define what “better” design actually means in your org.
Taste, craft, and talent matter, but impact comes from being able to explain what better looks like and why it matters. Design may not be a core strength in every organization, but moving work from below average to functional can have huge impact. You cannot do that without clearly defining what better design means for your team and your business.
