Design Leader Responsibilities
Craft
- Set the quality bar.
- Review work regularly.
- Stay close enough to the work to have informed opinions.
- Know when to let go of control.
People
- Hire for potential, not just current skill.
- Create growth paths for ICs and managers.
- Give feedback frequently (not just at reviews).
- Shield the team from politics while being politically aware.
Strategy
- Connect design to business outcomes.
- Advocate for user research budget.
- Build relationships with engineering and product leaders.
- Make the case for design investment with data.
Culture
- Establish critique habits.
- Celebrate good work publicly.
- Create psychological safety for creative risk-taking.
- Document principles and share widely.
Common Mistakes
- Being the best individual contributor instead of making the team better.
- Hiring people just like yourself.
- Over-processing (too many reviews, too many approvals).
- Not saying no to protect team capacity.
- Losing touch with actual user research.