Design Leadership

After studying a handful of articles concerning Design, Management, and Leadership (Managing is Designing?, Leadership is the Strategic Issue, Design Vs. Design Thinking, and Design Vision), my poor highlighter is begging for a break. Although each of these articles address slightly different topics, all addressed the qualities and responsibilities of a leader at some point. Some focused on business leaders, some on leaders within the design field, but I think most of the qualities addressed in these writings could be applicable to leaders of any field. Based on the fact that there were numerous authors and a small army worth of "commenters" on the Newsweek article, there were naturally hundreds of different ideas and opinions about what a leader should be. Leadership studies have always been of great interest to me. So, using all of my highlight marks - along with my own thoughts about leadership - I've tried to synthesize all of those comments into a single statement that I feel explains the task of a leader:

Leaders use their experience to recognize an opportunity, develop a vision, articulate that vision to others, then build and inspire a team to complete that vision.

I feel that a leader MUST fulfill all of these tasks and if you study any of the world's great leaders in any discipline/country/era, you'll find that they meet these criteria.  [Keep in mind that leaders and managers are two completely separate breeds. As most business education teaches, (in a nutshell) leaders define the goals and objectives for a company, while a manager sees that they are carried out.]  I'd like to address each of these criteria then and show how designers in particular have the "skeleton" to be a great leader using comments from the four articles above.

Leaders use their experience to recognize an opportunity
Take a look at a great leader's resume and you will find that they "paid their dues" before becoming rich, famous and loved. There is absolutely no substitute for real world experience. Every degree within a university could not prepare a person to be a leader without real work experience. Truth be told, had I been thrown into a management position fresh out of my MBA program, I most likely would have been a flop. Not because I'm not intelligent or can't learn on the fly, but because I had very minimal work experience. Leaders have worked at the bottom, they've witnessed AND experienced success and failure and have catalogued every experience and every conversation. In a comment attached to "Design vs. Design Thinking," Simon Shmueli argues against a design-business undergraduate degree, saying "People without real-life industry and life experience simply don't have the maturity and big-picture view that is necessary to really understand the issues. At the undergraduate level you need to equip them with skills that will give them a good start in the industry[.]" With experience comes the ability to recognize opportunities for improvement, for new ventures, and for innovation. Learning to recognize which opportunities are in line with his/her direction is one component of leadership.
Application for designers: Because designers are already accustomed to working across disciplines and must research extensively when creating each project, they are naturally positioned to accumulate a broad portfolio of experiences on which to call when in a leadership position.

Leaders develop a vision
....which brings me to the second criteria, developing that direction or vision. We would all like to be number one at everything. The reality is that most of us (or most companies) have a comparative advantage in a few things. Leaders understand where their company stands and develops a strategy to optimize their best characteristics. In "The Many Faces of Design Leadership," Kevin McCullagh states that leaders "have the ability to hover above the detail, see the big picture and think abstractly to imagine a different direction." To develop that vision, he says that leaders ask questions like "what is changing and what opportunities flow from this change? -what core competencies do we have and which do we need to build? -how are we going to set ourselves apart from the competition? -where's the money?" Having the ability to see the big picture and make decisions that steer the company are at the core of leadership.
Application for designers: Designers must continually question what is working and what isn't when researching and completing projects. They are also trained to stop and look at the big picture while also drilling through layers of superficial to get to the very core of a problem. These traits would serve designers well in leadership positions.

Leaders articulate their vision to others
I feel that this is probably the area where most would-be leaders drop the ball. A great vision that nobody else understands or feels compelled to support will never make it past the walls of that corner office. Firstly, a leader must be able to sell what is at the very core of his/her vision by stripping away all of the extraneous. In "Design Vision," Bob Baxley describes the importance of this task. "Although it might sound like a simple thing to do, the act of forcing the expression down to a single, concise sentence imposes a level of discipline, commitment and clarity that is all too often lacking [.]" In the discussion of design student vs. business student as potential manager, this is where I'm afraid that the business student could have an advantage. I had the opportunity this past year to teach a business communication course. Throughout the semester, in every project and assignment, I emphasized writing clearly and concisely and writing to express (an idea) rather than impress. This is a course that every designer should be required to take as a part of their education. Learning to strip meaningless, vague words from your vocabulary (various, several, numerous, very, etc), learning to use simple, easy-to-understand terms in place of the word-of-the-week, and eliminating one's reliance on slang, euphemisms, and jargon can lead to much more powerful communication
The second step of articulating one's vision however, is convincing others to follow. Dirk Knemeyer gave an incredible example of leader whose vision reached all through the ranks in recapping the story of the Cape Canaveral janitor who was "helping to put a man on the moon." He explained that "because of the shared goal and high organizational morale - the product of strong communication, starting with the President himself and running all the way down - everyone including the janitor saw their place not in terms of the specific role they did, but framed within this ambitious, even audacious, goal." Shared vision is what truly distinguishes great companies like Apple, Patagonia, and Southwest Airlines from every other good company out there.
Application for designers: As long as they avoid getting sucked into their new iMac with all of the latest software, designers - communicators at their core - are in a position to excel on this point. As Luke Wroblewski said in "Design Vision," "Designers can envision and articulate a strategy through words, pictures, and motion in a way that everyone can understand."

Leaders build and inspire a team to complete that vision
The janitor story above touched on this point already. Steve Jobs could not continually bring innovative, coveted products to market as a one-man band. A leader must be able to build a team of the right people and keep them inspired and empowered to help achieve a vision. In "Leadership is the Strategic Issue," Richard Farson makes an excellent comparison of a leader and a dinner party host that is worth restating, as it sums up the role a leader plays in the team in order to bring a vision to fruition.

"Leadership is like being a good host at a dinner party. [] A good host thoughtfully plans the evening, carefully composes the group, takes pains to create the proper environment, arranges the appropriate seating, sets the agenda for the evening, introduces subject matter for discussion, lubricates difficult situations, soothes relationships, takes responsibility, moves things along, attends to details, keeps controversy at a manageable level, adds humor and optimism, comes early and stays late, brings guests into the conversation who previously may have been marginal, handles one thing after another, shifts attention easily, listens well, doesn't dominate, is at ease with self and others, and most important, enables the guests to be at their best."

Application for designers: Design is a service profession. Designers should be comfortable with collaboration and with participating in a team process like the one described above. Many of our country's great leaders have embodied this style of "servant-leadership" that designers should be well-equipped to use.