The leadership design portfolio!
Everyone tells you to “write a story”, talk about your design process, but no one tells you to write a story of “how you led design”.
As design practitioners, 90% of the reason how we got into this profession is that we were the artistic experimental kid. The kid who was curious, loved art, graphics, drawing, animations, or combining things to create new things that we thought were cool. I could generalize and say — our childhood interests were in manifesting & exploring our imaginations. In return, we were appreciated for this ability, and at some point in our younger lives, someone said we were creative.
In applying for university and design jobs, you are asked to prepare a portfolio — which is basically a presentation showing your skill in creating things. Your creative ideas and explorations supported by a story of your process. The industry then merits you (gives you an education/job/opportunities) largely on your ability to communicate this, and how much they deem you to be ‘creative’ or ‘skilled’ in your past work.
‘That's great sketches’! ‘Wow, nice idea exploration, ‘These are great visuals’
Then all of a sudden, you hit the leadership level, and it’s almost as if all that stuff that got you to where you are doesn’t matter any more. You’ve spent the last 8–15 years conditioned to show your design story, your execution, your visual acuity, and now you’re left stuck trying to figure out — ‘Well, what do I put in a director/leadership portfolio?’. You might even start to wonder, ‘Why do I need a portfolio?’. Some even have a soul-searching question “Do I even want to be a design leader?”‘How do I tell the design creation story???’
That’s the point — in leadership, you don’t.
The big difference now is, most people (especially for larger teams) don’t want to hire you to ‘design’ something. They hire you to lead and manage design that is being done by others. I laugh about it now, but like many friends, I have had my fair share of challenges, obstacles, and portfolio confusion at the leadership level. What didn’t help was, in the industry, department heads wanting to see visuals before anything else. Or, the lack of job adverts not clearly emphasizing the biggest need in the role i.e. coaching more junior designers, managing external agencies & teams, educating others in the business about design to help mature this in the organisation, or being a specialist in a single craft area to fill in missing business expertise. I remember seeing one job advert stating:
‘We are not interested in seeing a polished designer portfolio. Instead, tell us how you led something through, how you aligned designers & stakeholders, or overcame a complex project problem with limited budget’.
They were very clear about what they needed and wanted from a design leader. But overall, the most common issue, that still seems to exist even at the leadership is, ‘the gatekeeper recruiter’. The person who knows very little about the nuances of design who asks, ‘Have you been in a well-known tech or design-led company? You know, something like a Frog, Stripe, Nike, Google, Apple?’ with this being their preliminarily way to assess someone’s leadership abilities, making up for their inability to pinpoint leadership qualities they specifically need for their team and company situation. All these elements result in more confusion about the ‘Leadership Design Portfolio’.
So, what do you actually put in a design leadership portfolio?
I’m still learning, but so far I have learned to show less and tell more. Use screenshots or single images to trigger talking points. Points about your leadership perspective, how you increased design maturity, how you had a broad influence across several company areas, and how you built bridges or trust. What do you believe design should be used for? How approachable and friendly you are in your ability to mentor others. How you acted as a conduit, a facilitator, or mediator between departments. All the things that are naturally much easier to explain in a conversation. It’s just that from being labelled as a ‘designer’, people expect (rightly or wrongly) for us to talk through visuals, and leverage the visceral connection that we have with communication.
There are results-driven teams and companies that may want to see success numbers such as performance metrics, sales figures, revenue percentages, etc. That’s fine to show. But from speaking with others in senior leadership, it appears that in another 5+ years of design leadership, your ‘interview’ will result in just a series of coffee conversations (no visuals/portfolio) with people wanting to understand and learn how you express the value of design to others. How you’ve dealt with high risk business conversations and situations, and your ability to present and communicate with conviction, to influence or inspire others.
This formative transition in your career can be frustrating, but if done right, it can lead you to find a company & team that thinks about design and its value similar to how you do, resulting in you spending time surrounded by people who ‘get you’.
One day back in my time as a Bar Manager, my Regional Events Director came up to me and said something that always changed my mind about how I think about leadership…… Today, I still think it is one of the best pieces of leadership advice I have been given. He said:
‘Stace, all I want you to do is take a step back and just focus on making sure the team consistently have everything they need, so they can do a good job. Radio me about anything or anyone that might mess that up’.
It seems the higher up you go in leadership, the more it becomes about preventing detrimental screw-ups, while also responding and fixing smaller unexpected issues on the spot. Adding the word ‘Design’ before it, just means we are doing this in the design space.
Thanks for reading. This article was inspired from a conversation with Davey Miyabe. I’m a Design Leader, writer and speaker. I help to create complete experiences for end-consumers and businesses.
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