For the Love of Strategy: What Design Leadership Truly Looks Like in Practice
By Doug Eaddy Art Director + Brand Strategist
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The most difficult lesson I have learned while working as an Art Director is that design and strategy need to be integrated to influence each other, rather than developed separately.
While in school we were taught to believe that design was informed by strategy, (strategy tells us what to do; design makes it happen), but in reality, I have come to understand a much more complicated dynamic between the two. That is, design and strategy are interconnected, and when they are viewed as separate disciplines, both suffer. This is because you can’t have one without the other.
Design leadership is not just selecting color palettes, designing logos, or getting the design team to produce their deliverables faster. Design leadership means providing clarity in complex systems, aligning committee members or stakeholders with a vision before you start building anything, and knowing when to hold off on executing on direction to make sure direction is correct.
Early in my career, there were two leadership opportunities that helped me realize this truth about design leadership, and completely transformed how I now lead design teams.
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Design Moving Ahead of Strategy
Currently, I’m serving as an Art Director in Marketing at a college. I was assigned to create a brand identity for a new student support program to offer free services to students in need. The mission was important and the urgency was real because the opening was during the time many families weren’t receiving SNAP benefits for that month. Therefore, there were a lot of expectations placed upon me.
At first glance, it appeared to be a straight-forward project. Develop a name, a visual identity and the supporting materials needed for the initiative to launch quickly. However, early in the project, a major issue became apparent. Although the person requesting the design was the primary point of contact, they were not the only decision maker.
It was later realized that what initially appeared to be a single point of contact was actually just one member of a larger committee. Therefore, when the design concepts were being developed and communicated, the design direction and feedback on the concepts from the committee was conflicting. This led to momentum in the project slowing down.
The issues associated with the project did not stem from the design itself, but rather the leadership and communication processes.
Design leadership research continues to emphasize that the first step for a leader is to determine who has the authority to make decisions, who has influence and who has decision making authority prior to commencing with the development or implementation of any design concept (Brown, 2009; Buchanan, 1992) . This was not established prior to the start of the project.
Upon recognizing that moving further would only make matters worse and the communications more confusing, I decided to stop all design activity and re-initiate the entire process.
Although the reset delayed the project slightly, it will ultimately save the department’s time and money by eliminating potential long term inefficiencies in the project. A major lesson I learned from this experience is that speed without alignment is costly, especially with time.
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Resetting the Room: Leadership in Alignment
After learning from obstacles I faced with the last college initiative. I had the opportunity to lead the artwork for another brand identity project. For this project it was creating visuals for a new grant to recruit students to a new sector of our machine manufacturing program. However, instead of simply keeping all of these conversations on going emails or other forms of communication, I had the opportunity to gather everybody from committee members, and other potential contributors for one complete meeting.
That meeting marked a transition in my position from being a designer to being a design leader.
At that meeting:
- Open-ended questions could be asked by the committee.
- Clarifying questions were asked regarding goals, success metrics, and constraints by me.
- Assumptions that were quietly influencing the work process and decisions that were made behind the scenes was brought to light and discussed.
This method of decision-making has its roots in Strategic Communication Research. In research, it is shown that direct, synchronous communication between a stakeholder and an organization’s leaders decreases dis-alignment, increases shared ownership, and builds mutual understanding among parties (Manzini, 2015). When all the individuals directly involved are able to meet face-to-face or virtually, the level of dis-alignment decreases, and the level of trust increases among all parties.
Thus, the discussion was now focused on purpose, audience, and long-term effects. Rather than simply viewing the brand identity as a logo; the brand identity was viewed as a strategic tool to signal to students who need it most, the levels of trust, accessibility and support that they would receive through this product.
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What Design Leadership Has Taught Me From These Experiences
I came away with many lessons from these experiences in terms of my understanding of what it means to lead as a designer.
- The first lesson I took away was that the way I think about leading designers isn’t just about producing work, it’s about creating an environment to produce work. I came to realize that the leaders’ job is to get all of the team members aligned, define the intent, and establish direction before you have the team start executing on their tasks.
- The second lesson I took away was that the engagement of stakeholders in design is not optional, it is a strategy. The evidence from participatory design research has shown time and again that when stakeholders are involved early and in a meaningful way, there are much higher rates of acceptance, trust, and ultimately, longer term success (Manzini, 2015).
- The third lesson I took away is that the act of leading does not mean avoiding conflict, it means creating space for conflict to be productive. In other words, it is creating space where the questions will arise, where the assumptions will be questioned, and where the clarity will emerge.
- The fourth lesson I took away is that setbacks are not failures. They are learning systems. What may be a problem in one project may become an operational advantage in another. As a result, design leadership is iterative not only in terms of product or service development, but also in terms of the mind-set of the leader.
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My Final Take: Easing Boundaries, Culture, and Transformation within Institutional Systems
What I learned is that the biggest misconception about design leadership especially, in higher education, government, and large institutions is that design leaders operate in an environment that has complete autonomy over design. As opposed to agencies or startups where the design team may have total ownership of their product and decisions happen quickly; in institutional systems, there are multiple levels of leadership, established legacy processes, cultural norms, and many other competing priorities.
Overtime, I came to realize that design leadership in institutional systems requires much more than creativity and/or strategic thinking. The requirements for successful design leadership in institutional settings require organizational awareness like understanding how decisions are made, who makes those decisions and ultimately how change occurs.
For example, in higher education, there exists a “wicked problem” context that involves no single owner, no clear solution, and ever changing factors (Buchanan, 1992). In student-led initiatives and campus wide programs, design projects are rarely independent of institutional mission, political issues, and future obligations.
This realization changed the way I viewed my role as a design leader.
When I refer to the initiatives mentioned above, success was determined by whether or not the design project could successfully navigate the system or whether the design concept aligned with institutional goals, resonated with the committees and had sufficient longevity after launch.
Therefore, design leadership moves from a focus on craftsmanship to a focus on stewardship.
As opposed to asking, “What is the best design?” I now ask a more strategic question:
“What design can this system support, accept and protect?”
Research in design management supports this perspective. According to Borja de Mozota (2003), design only provides lasting value when it is embedded in organizational strategy and decision making frameworks. Absent this level of integration, even very effective design projects risk being either diluted or ignored.
In practice, this means I do not adjust only what I design, but also how I lead.
From the beginning of new initiatives I treat the first meeting less like an approval process and more like a conversation to help everyone make sense of what we are doing. I learn to listen for the unspoken constraints (i.e., budget cycle, staffing, etc.) that will influence how the initiative is implemented. I also began to communicate design concepts in terms of institutional language, describing identity systems not as visual representations, but as methods for creating clarity, building trust, and increasing access.
Finally, I come to realize that in complex systems, leadership requires a great deal of patience and self-restraint. Understanding when to stop pushing for something. Understanding when momentum is secondary to alignment. Understanding that at times the most strategic move you can make is to slow down and ask better questions and to get the right people around the table even when deadlines are approaching.
While this type of leadership may not always be easy, it challenges the traditional view of designers as individuals who provide answers. Rather, it positions design leaders as individuals who assist institutions in gaining clarity about themselves prior to attempting to implement change.
Ultimately, this form of leadership is about stewardship rather than control. For me, this is my north star as I continue to help brands turn their concepts into conversations and ultimately into conversions.
References with links to books and articles:
Borja de Mozota, B. (2003).
Design Management: Using Design to Build Brand Value and Corporate Innovation.
New York: Allworth Press.
- https://www.allworth.com/books/design-management
- https://www.academia.edu/104363601/Design_A_Business_Case
Brown, T. (2009).
Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation.
New York: Harper Business.
Buchanan, R. (1992).
- Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. Design Issues, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 5–21.
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/1511637
Manzini, E. (2015).
Design When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
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