🕵🏻♀️ The Unofficial Path to UX Leadership
Why waiting for a promotion might be holding you back (and what to do instead)
👋 Happy Saturday, my dear UX friends, Marina here!
Today, I want to address a challenge that would probably resonate with many UXers. Here's a message I received from one of our community members:
"Hi! I'm a Senior UX Designer at a mid-sized tech company where I've been for almost three years. I love the product we're building and my team is great, but I'm starting to feel stuck. While I'm ready to move into a leadership role, there's no clear path for UX growth here. We have a flat structure, and our design team is relatively small (just 4 designers).
My manager appreciates my work, but when I brought up career progression, they mainly talked about becoming a better individual contributor.
I know I want to lead and shape product strategy, but I'm not sure how to make that transition when there's no formal leadership track. Should I look for opportunities elsewhere, or is there a way to grow into leadership from where I am?
Any guidance would mean the world to me!"
This person’s situation highlights a very common predicament in our field: the desire to grow into leadership when there's no obvious path forward.
This challenge is particularly prevalent in smaller companies or organizations where UX is still maturing.
But here's the truth that took me years to learn:
Leadership isn't a position—it's a practice.
Let me share a framework I call "The Invisible Leader's Playbook" that has helped many of my mentees create their own path to leadership, even in organizations without formal UX leadership tracks.
The Core Principle:
Lead Before You're Leading
The secret to transitioning into leadership isn't waiting for a title
It's embodying leadership qualities before you have the formal role.
I bet, you knew that ;)
This approach creates a natural gravity that pulls opportunities toward you.
Let's break this down into 4️⃣ actionable strategies ↴
1. The Sphere of Influence Strategy
Start by mapping and gradually expanding your influence within the organization.
Here's how:
Build a "Leadership Experience Portfolio" by volunteering to lead initiatives that nobody owns yet.
Look for gaps in processes, documentation, or team coordination.
Create and maintain a UX practice playbook for your team.
Document best practices, processes, and learnings.
This becomes a valuable resource and positions you as a knowledge leader.
Initiate and lead design critiques, making them a regular part of the team's routine.
Focus on elevating the quality of discussion and ensuring actionable outcomes.
2. The “Strategic Partner” Approach
Transform your role from "the designer" to "the design partner".
Here’s how:
Schedule regular coffee chats with product managers and engineering leads. Understand their challenges and goals beyond your immediate projects.
Proactively present user insights and market trends that could impact product strategy. Package these insights in a way that resonates with business stakeholders.
Create quarterly UX health reports for your product area, highlighting opportunities and risks from a user perspective.
3. The Team Multiplier Method
Focus on elevating the entire design team's impact:
Introduce a new weekly design team sync where you rotate presentation responsibilities among team members.
Create opportunities for junior designers to shine by mentoring them and sharing credit generously.
Develop and share design templates, component libraries, or research playbooks that make everyone more efficient.
4. The Business Impact Engine
Connect design work to business outcomes (you knew it was coming :) :
Create a simple dashboard tracking the impact of design improvements on key metrics (even if you have to collect data manually).
Present case studies of your team's work in company all-hands meetings, focusing on business impact rather than just design decisions.
Develop a quarterly UX strategy document that aligns with company objectives and share it with stakeholders.
Putting It Into Practice:
🚀 Your 90-Day Leadership Launch Plan
🗓 Week 1-2:
Audit your current sphere of influence
Identify 3 initiatives you could lead that align with company goals
Schedule initial coffee chats with key stakeholders
🗓 Week 3-4:
Launch one initiative from your audit
Create the first version of your UX practice playbook
Set up recurring design team syncs
🗓 Week 5-8:
Begin collecting data for your UX health report
Mentor at least one team member on a high-visibility project
Start documenting team successes and impact metrics
🗓 Week 9-12:
Present your first UX health report to stakeholders
Launch your second leadership initiative
Create your first quarterly UX strategy document
Most importantly:
The goal isn't to do everything at once.
Pick the elements that resonate most with your situation and start there.
The Hidden Advantage
Here's something most people don't realize:
Being in a company without a formal UX leadership track can actually be an advantage!
It gives you the freedom to define what leadership looks like and create a role that plays to your strengths.
Your Challenge
This week, I want you to:
Choose one element from each of the four strategies above
Implement them in the next 30 days
Document the impact and learnings
Then, share your experience with our community. Your journey might just inspire someone else to take that first step toward leadership.
See you next Saturday!
P.S.
Leadership is primarily about asking the right questions (not having all answers ;) , and of course, helping others find their way.
So start there, and the rest will follow!
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It was really helpful content, Marina! Thanks for this. :)
This is a great nudge to do something for my career. I've got several items in motion but there are some great ideas in here on how to keep adding to my pile of leadership behaviors. :)