In this talk, presented at EuroIA 2020, I share leadership tips & tricks for when your responsibilities change, no matter in what direction: moving in: trying out mentoring and leading moving up: you got promoted; now what? moving left and right: adding skills, broadening your horizon moving down: adjusting and going for principal moving out: changing environments, freelancing

2. コナミコマンド
konami komando
[↑][↑][↓][↓][←][→][←][→][B][A]
Kazuhisa Hashimoto
Konami Code, by Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code

4. Peter’s career moves
[↑][↑][↓][↑][↑][↓][←][↑]
[↑][↓][↑][→][↑][←][↑][→]
[START] Masters in computer science & ergonomics (1995)
[SELECT] Director of Product Design at ServiceNow (since 2018)

5. [START] computer science & ergonomics
[ ↑ ] designer/consultant
[ ↑ ] project manager
[ ↓ ] small burnout
[ ↑ ] senior designer
[ ↑ ] consultant user understanding
[ ↓ ] big burnout
[←] concept designer
[ ↑ ] senior information architect
[ ↑ ] managing partner
[ ↓ ] senior interaction designer
[ ↑ ] experience designer at Adaptive Path
[→] freelance process designer
[ ↑ ] interaction design director
[←] freelance interaction designer
[ ↑ ] UX strategist
[→] freelance UX strategist
[SELECT] product design director
Peter’s career moves

6. With each move came a different set of
responsibilities and opportunities
to influence designers and organizations.
Each move (up, down, left, and right)
helped me grow as a design leader.
Peter’s career moves

11. Everyone can be a leader
Managers must have reports,
leaders will gather followers

12. Can non-designers be design leaders?
Non-negotiable qualities in a design leader:
• Great design leaders are analytical
• Great design leaders think holistically
• Great design leaders practice curiosity over complacency
• Great design leaders are gifted storytellers
• Great design leaders help people grow
• Great design leaders are passionate about design
Is it mandatory to be a good designer to be a great design leader?, by Tarun Kohli,
https://uxplanet.org/is-it-mandatory-to-be-a-good-designer-to-be-a-great-design-leader-792fa04edec6

13. So even researchers be design leaders? ;-)
Organizations looking at their next leader of design,
shouldn’t restrict themselves to the “usual suspects”
but should cast a wider net to seek out researchers
if that type of leader aligns with their organizational
challenge of bringing together groups in closer
partnership, showing more of the value of design, and
empowering and amplifying the voices of the individual
designers.
UX Researchers Can Become Leaders in a Designer’s World, by Mike Oren, https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/ux-researchers-can-become-leaders-in-a-
designers-world/

16. Leading happens everywhere
“Design leaders may be everywhere in
organisations large and small. They challenge
the status quo to improve how their company
develops products. They build bridges that
connect departments and other leaders who
may have never spoken to each other. They
implement and evangelise practices that their
organisation had previously only heard about.”
Liftoff! Practical Design Leadership to Elevate Your Team, Your Organization, and You, by Chris Avore and Russ Unger, https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/ux-
leadership/

17. Leadership behaviours
How to be a better leader:
• Strive for measurable outcomes; reinforce goals
• Insist that all meetings have agendas
• Conform in-person decisions in writing
• Use documents for complex decisions
• When in doubt, over-communicate
• Apply good lightweight processes and don’t use power to sidestep them
• If a plan seems strange, wait 5 minutes, then ask “why”?
Don’t Create Chaos, by StaySaaSy, https://staysaasy.com/management/2020/07/07/dont-create-chaos.html

18. You can pick up leadership responsibilities anytime
Leadership responsibilities range from:
Level 1 - mentoring other designers
Level 2 - setting internal standards and defining processes
Level 3 - promoting your team’s work,
inside and outside of the organisation
Level 4 - developing strategies for a team
and linking these to other strategies

20. Level 1 - mentoring is a good way to start
• Mentoring is all about the mentee - the person being mentored - and
discovering a path forward: in contributions to projects, to team, to the
organization.
• Mentor/mentee relationships should not be between managers and their
reports.
• Determining goals and a meeting schedule, and agree on - and revisit - areas
that seem troublesome.
• The mentor brings expertise, the mentee curiosity.

22. Level 2 - define your design process
You Can Do Better! - Improve Your Design Process, by Peter Boersma, https://www.slideshare.net/pboersma/improve-your-design-process-ux-vienna

24. Level 3 - share your vision
• Try to illustrate - in words or pictures - a better future for a product, team,
process, or the business.
• First share it with the team, mentors, friends, and incorporate their feedback.
• Find references that discuss (and ideally support) your vision; share those too.
• Then share it wider, on the intranet, an in-house Slack channel, an external blog,
or a meetup or conference.
• Remind people of the vision when relevant, especially when parts become real
• Optimize it locally, but regularly reflect and see if you can radically reinvent it.

26. Level 4 - forge links between strategies & roadmaps
SDL added strategists to a UX team - what happened next will blow your mind!, by Peter Boersma at UX STRAT Europe 2015, https://www.slideshare.net/
pboersma/sdl-added-strategists-to-a-ux-team-ux-strat

27. [↑] Levels in Leadership Skills
Skill L1: Beginner L2-L4 L5: Master
Direction
Establishes, encourages and nurtures a strong
sense of team spirit amongst colleagues and
peers.
…
Has proven experience of envisioning and
realising a unique flagship company initiative
with tangible and demonstrable business
benefits.
Mentoring
Discusses and compares professional
development objectives with colleagues and
peers.
…
Actively mentors multiple individuals and is
highly sought after by potential mentees, inside
or outside of the organisation.
Teaching
Can share well-tested techniques and
methods with colleagues on demand.
…
Can deliver professional coaching or training
to an exemplary academic standard.
Professional Development Framework by Clearleft, https://clearleft.progressionapp.com/framework

29. Leadership outcomes
My litmus test for effective leadership: any room that you enter
should have more certainty and a firmer plan by the time that
you leave it.
Good leaders can walk into a situation where people have lost track
of their goals and get everyone aligned on a clear path forward.
They remove unimportant details, distill complex situations to their
essence, and get the right decision-maker to make a call – even if
it’s not them. They’re able to not only stop bad plans before it’s too
late, but get them moving again in the right direction.
Don’t Create Chaos, by StaySaaSy, https://staysaasy.com/management/2020/07/07/dont-create-chaos.htm

33. [↑] You got promoted, now what?
First of all: congratulations!
Then: You have new opportunities!
• New peers means other people to influence
• New deliverables to lead with: product vision, design strategy & roadmap
But often also:
• (More) management responsibilities

34. [↑] Dual Career Ladder
IC 1
IC 2
IC 3
IC 4
IC 5
IC 6
Individual Contributor
M 1
M 2
M 3
M 4
M 5
M 6
Manager

35. [↑] Climbing as individual contributor
Getting to Senior in UX by Cyd Harrell at UI23, https://www.slideshare.net/cydharrell/getting-to-senior-in-ux

36. [↑] Climbing as a manager
1. Good managers are skilled at asking questions
2. Good managers listen
3. Good managers address context first, content second
…
10. Good managers are proactive about their team members’ career growth. They don’t
dread career conversations with team members, they actively invite such conversations.
…
14. Good managers are confident & secure in their role.
15. Good managers value clear thinking, sound judgement, and wisdom.
A Short Guide to Becoming a Good Manager, by Shreyas Doshi, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-good-managers-think-act-shreyas-doshi/

37. [↑] Crossing the bridge: IC vs. Manager
Today we lose many remarkable IC product designers to the management track
because it doesn’t feel like there’s any other way to grow and do meaningful
work at-scale.
Either as a result of poor management or immature organizational structure, the
manager sees their role as being not only to assign tasks and help manage
careers, but also to define the quality of the work and single-handedly own
product vision and direction.
A design manager’s energy is better spent overseeing the decisions behind the
work setup and managing the teams themselves, unblocking members and
bridging gaps across teams, not managing or owning the design output and
strategy.
Where IC designers go once they peak, by Tanner Chistensen, https://tannerchristensen.com/blog/2019/12/23/where-ic-designers-go-once-they-peak

38. [↑] Dual Career Ladder
IC 1
IC 2
IC 3
IC 4
IC 5
IC 6
Individual Contributor
M 1
M 2
M 3
M 4
M 5
M 6
Manager
Leadership

39. [↑] Combining management & leadership
These days, teams expect their managers to also be great leaders.
The trick is in knowing when to show up as a leader, as a
manager, or as both (spoiler alert: it’s usually both). [..] If you rely
too much on positional power, you’ll alienate your team and come
across as an autocratic leader. If you rely too much on personal
power, you won’t learn how to make authoritative decisions (or
build trust in your ability to make those decisions), which will
significantly dampen your ability to have an impact on the
business.
Both/And: Untangling the Relationship Between Management & Leadership, by Andrea Mignolo, https://medium.com/method-matter/both-and-untangling-
the-relationship-between-management-leadership-21fdcd06f546

41. [↑] Women don’t get promoted enough
53% of entry-level designers are female
but only 11% are in management roles.
Design Census 2019, by Google and AIGA, https://designcensus.org/

42. [↑] 5 issues preventing women from being promoted
Affinity Bias - they are not the same as the current male leaders
Prove-it-again Bias - “I’m not convinced yet, can you show it again?”
Glass-Cliff Theory - 1/3rd of women are removed from leadership and given
impossible assignments
Lack of mentorship & sponsorship - caused by fewer women in leadership +
affinity bias
Motherhood penalty - women’s earnings drop significantly after having a child;
men’s don’t
Side-effect: Too often, this is leading to burnout - Patriarchy Stress Disorder
Sources:
- Women are on the warpath - part 1, by Bronwen Rees, https://uxplanet.org/women-are-on-the-warpath-part-1-1ca6f0890862
- Why Women Don’t Advance into Senior Leadership and What To Do About It, by Janice Fraser, Leading Design, 2017, https://vimeo.com/243653969
- A stunning chart shows the true cause of the gender wage gap, by Sarah Kliff, https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty

48. [↑] The Peter
Principle

49. [↑] The Peter
Principle

50. [↑] Don’t go up too high! The Peter Principle
In a hierarchy, every employee
tends to rise to his/her level of
incompetence.
Peter Principle, by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

54. [↓] Leading takes emotional resilience
“Leaders always have to be on perfect behaviour. Responding with
inspirational empathy to even the rudest of human beings.
This takes a toll. (This is not something I would share with my team.)”
C-suite leader, Phoenix, USA
“There is relatively less praise for being a leader, as excellence is
expected. In addition, being an effective leader requires you to deal
with your issues and your ego so that you can actually hear and see
what's going on around you without your personal issues getting
in the way.”
Leader, Seattle, USA
Emotional Resilience in Leadership Report (2020), by Jonny Miller & Jan Chipchase, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KaPv-yVxjLb8b4WlF0nsAA5b6ftAsYw3/
view

55. [↓] Career suicide
I committed what some might consider a demotion, or career
suicide, by going to my manager and asking her if I can just
be a designer again.
Leadership is not a title. It's not an authority granted to you
from on high. It's an energy and influence born of loving what
you do minute to minute, and allowing that energy to
overflow into the hearts and minds of the teammates around
you.
There and Back Again, by Russ Maschmeyer at Leading Design 2017, https://vimeo.com/243668001

56. [↓] Not a Manager but Principal Designer
Rather than having to move into a management role to become a
formally recognized leader, high-level IC designers should be
utilized on larger and larger business and product problems.
What this looks like in practice will vary from team to team and
business to business, but at it’s core it comes down to giving very
senior designers the responsibility to make business-level
product design decisions, maybe even more than that. Along with
the added responsibility: fair treatment alongside their people-
managing counter-parts.
Where IC designers go once they peak, by Tanner Chistensen, https://tannerchristensen.com/blog/2019/12/23/where-ic-designers-go-once-they-peak

60. [←][→] From T-Shape to Broken Comb
Add skills!
• more specialist skills
• more generalist skills
Have impact!
• more words to express your ideas in
• more people to turn into followers
T-model: Big IA is now UX, by Peter Boersma, http://beep.peterboersma.com/2004/11/t-model-big-ia-is-now-ux.html

61. [←][→] From full-time to freelancing
“I left a full-time job at Fjord, because I wanted to be my own person and
master of my own destiny again. Josh Seiden summed it up best in a note
to me recently (quoted with his permission):
I tell people that there have been four phases to my career:
1. Fit myself (I think I’m a square peg) into a a round hole.
2. Look for a square hole. Try to make myself squarer.
3. Realize that I’m a josh-shaped peg. Look for josh-shaped holes.
4. Make my own damn hole.”
The Shape of You, by Andy Polaine, https://andypolaine.substack.com/p/doctors-note-issue-19-the-shape-of

63. [←][→] From in-person to remote
The traits of good remote leaders, by Erin Foletto Casali, https://intenseminimalism.com/2020/the-traits-of-good-remote-leaders/
In-person leaders Remote leaders
Extraverted Connected
Charismatic Aware
Conscientious Organizer
Intelligent Productive
Good speaker Good writer

67. I pity
the fool…
B. A. Baracus, by Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._A._Baracus

69. [A][B]ook
Liftoff! Practical Design Leadership to Elevate Your Team, Your
Organization, and You, by Chris Avore and Russ Unger (2020)
The ideal team player - a leadership fable about the
three essential values, by Patrick Lencioni (2016)
Design Leadership: The First 90 Days, by Andrea Mignolo
(early 2021, until then, you have to do with the slides from her talk at Leading Design
2016: https://www.slideshare.net/pnts/new-on-the-job-your-first-90-days-in-a-design-
leadership-role)

70. [B][A]articles (1/4)
Konami Code, by Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code
Is it mandatory to be a good designer to be a great design leader?, by Tarun Kohli
https://uxplanet.org/is-it-mandatory-to-be-a-good-designer-to-be-a-great-design-leader-792fa04edec6
UX Researchers Can Become Leaders in a Designer’s World, by Mike Oren
https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/ux-researchers-can-become-leaders-in-a-designers-world/
Design Census 2019, by Google and AIGA
https://designcensus.org/
Women are on the warpath - part 1, by Bronwen Rees
https://uxplanet.org/women-are-on-the-warpath-part-1-1ca6f0890862
Why Women Don’t Advance into Senior Leadership and What To Do About It, by Janice Fraser
https://vimeo.com/243653969
A stunning chart shows the true cause of the gender wage gap, by Sarah Kliff
https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty

71. [B][A]articles (2/4)
You Can Do Better! - Improve Your Design Process, by Peter Boersma
https://www.slideshare.net/pboersma/improve-your-design-process-ux-vienna
SDL added strategists to a UX team - what happened next will blow your mind!, by
Peter Boersma at UX STRAT Europe 2015
https://www.slideshare.net/pboersma/sdl-added-strategists-to-a-ux-team-ux-strat
Don’t Create Chaos, by StaySaaSy
https://staysaasy.com/management/2020/07/07/dont-create-chaos.htm
Getting to Senior in UX, by Cyd Harrell at UI23
https://www.slideshare.net/cydharrell/getting-to-senior-in-ux
A Short Guide to Becoming a Good Manager, by Shreyas Doshi
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-good-managers-think-act-shreyas-doshi/

72. [B][A]articles (3/4)
Where IC designers go once they peak, by Tanner Chistensen
https://tannerchristensen.com/blog/2019/12/23/where-ic-designers-go-once-they-peak
Both/And: Untangling the Relationship Between Management & Leadership, by Andrea
Mignolo
https://medium.com/method-matter/both-and-untangling-the-relationship-between-
management-leadership-21fdcd06f546
Professional Development Framework by Clearleft
https://clearleft.progressionapp.com/framework
Peter Principle, by Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
Emotional Resilience in Leadership Report (2020), by Jonny Miller & Jan Chipchase
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KaPv-yVxjLb8b4WlF0nsAA5b6ftAsYw3/view

73. [B][A]articles (4/4)
There and Back Again, by Russ Maschmeyer at Leading Design 2017
https://vimeo.com/243668001
T-model: Big IA is now UX, by Peter Boersma
http://beep.peterboersma.com/2004/11/t-model-big-ia-is-now-ux.html
The Shape of You, by Andy Polaine
https://andypolaine.substack.com/p/doctors-note-issue-19-the-shape-of
The traits of good remote leaders, by Erin ‘Foletto’ Casali
https://intenseminimalism.com/2020/the-traits-of-good-remote-leaders/
B. A. Baracus, by Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._A._Baracus
Arcade Font created by @photonstorm
generator at http://arcade.photonstorm.com/

75. Leading is a mindset!
View your [colleagues]
not as who they are,
in their current job titles,
but as who they can be
with your leadership.
Why Good Leaders Have Followers And Great Leaders Make More Leaders, by Jeff Mask, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/good-leaders-vs-great-
lea_b_6509314