Advancing designs from wires through a launched product takes true collaboration of cross-functional teams, co-creating together. This enables us to deliver unified experiences across the organization and seamless experiences for users across web, mobile web, and native applications.

Design is both a creative and strategic discipline. When we pay attention to our users and solve problems through our designs we offer tremendous value. Advancing design as a discipline is key to experience design remaining vibrant, innovative, and providing great value in shaping product creation. 

I am a coach and mentor to designers, working with them to grow in team leadership, deepening UX strategy and design thinking, elevating design skills, and engaging effectively with colleagues across the organization.

As a Design Manager I inspire and support my design team so they are empowered to do their best work, elevating designs beyond product requirements to deliver designs that delight. I listen to what they need and what I can offer so they can perform at their highest level.

I draw on design expertise to motivate them as tireless advocates for our users while helping them understand and advance organizational goals. I set them up for success by providing clear expectations, an organized planning and design process, and the tools and resources to succeed.

I encourage designers to enhance their skills and to never lose sight of approaching design with passion, curiosity, and empathy. I give them autonomy to “own” their work while also providing constructive feedback and guidance to help them grow as designers and in their careers.

Fundamental to achieving success in leading a design team (or, for that matter, any team) is trust. I make establishing trust with my team the top priority. According to Deloitte, 79% of employees who trust their employer are more motivated to work (and less likely to leave).² In my experience, creating trust strengthens teams and allows for more meaningful and productive work relationships. Trust goes a long way toward creating a culture people want to be a part of and contribute to.

I’m inspired by how Ashely Reichheld describes her leadership philosophy in The Four Factors of Trust.³ It is a philosophy I subscribe to and use. I believe it serves me, and teams I lead, well.

• Be Human: Strive to cultivate an inclusive practice. Strive to demonstrate empathy, kindness, and vulnerability. Value and respect people as individuals regardless of background, identify, or beliefs.
• Be Transparent: Aim to be like the Dutch. Transparency is so intrinsic to Dutch culture that there is a word for it – bespreekbaarheid – which roughly means that everything can and should be talked about.
• Be Capable: Endeavor to create long-term solutions and improvements that work through collaboration and innovation. Progress happens when we are courageous, skillful, and look to change things for the better.
• Be Reliable: Take ownership and action to deliver consistently and dependably on the promises I make.

There is one more point that I add to my leadership philosophy: have a sense of humor. We should take our work seriously and be professional and respectful, but we shouldn’t be so serious, either about work or ourselves, that we forget to laugh and enjoy the work we do and those we work with.

1. Paraphrased from quote by Steve Krug in DON’T MAKE ME THINK: A Common Sense Approach to Web, and Mobile, Usability (New Riders, 2014).
2. “How Trust in your organization can drive performance” – https://www.deloitte.com/an/en/issues/trust.html
3. From (with minor edits) “Ashley’s leadership philosophy” in Ashley Reichheld with Amelia Dunlop, The Four Factors of Trust: How Organizations Can Earn Lifelong Loyalty (Wiley, 2023), p. 117.