Design Twitter is at it again. The debate over who is or isn’t a designer is in full force. “We’re all designers.” “Only designers are designers.” “There are no designers.”
This is not a new debate, and personally, I do not understand what or who this debate serves, but I know this debate does not help me. It does not spark joy.
If you’re a design leader, is this really a debate at your organization? Are your business, product, and engineering partners having this debate? Is this debate reducing your levels of anxiety or stress? Increasing them? If you are a design leader, are you struggling daily with other things, like self-doubt?
Strong Design Twitter voices are seemingly able to navigate any issue they are confronted with. Often though, their proposed solutions lack nuance and often come from a very privileged place. I don’t believe this debate is helping with the pragmatic and applicable ways design leaders can overcome self-doubt.
As a result, this Design Twitter debate seems to compound insecurities in individuals rather than level-up the design community as a whole.
Self-doubt is a real thing. Over the years, I have met many capable and brilliant designers who were crippled by it. Even as they transitioned into design leadership roles, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome not only remained, it magnified. I, too, can relate.
Effective transformation from designer to design leader starts and ends with nuance. The most effective design leaders I know overcome their struggles with self-doubt in five ways:
- They ground themselves in objective feedback
- They practice new skills every day
- They ask for help
- They seek out safe spaces to get help
- They rinse and repeat 1-4
We are all transforming into something, and transforming into a better design leader is possible. I believe helping design leaders with pragmatic and applicable ways to transform can help overcome self-doubt. I think introducing new types of training and education for design leaders is needed.
Leadership is not for everyone, but it might be for you. Becoming an effective design deader is possible, and it takes practice to reduce uncertainty in that transform.