Over my career, I’ve seen a pattern play out time and time again when designers transition into leadership roles. While the functional aspects of the leadership role may be known, many designers struggle with moving out of the spotlight.
As a leader, your job is to set a path for others and allow them to have the spotlight. When I work with companies who are struggling with leadership, I refer back to my days studying atmospheric sciences to visualize this important transition.
To the casual eye, lightning appears to be a single event. One bolt striking in an instant. In reality though, there are many separate paths of ionized air which stem from the cloud at once. These paths of ionized air occur before the lightning strike and are called step leaders. Step Leaders are the tiny little splinters of light that spread out across the sky, forming paths across the sky.
While they appear to only move down towards the earth, they in fact operate more like a sewing machine needle. Moving up and down with each downward movement, incrementally the leaders get one step closer to the ground.
The leader that reaches the earth first reaps the rewards of the journey by providing a conductive path between the cloud and the earth. This leader is not the lightning strike; it only maps out the course that the strike will follow. The strike is the sudden, massive, flow of electrical current moving from the cloud to the ground on the path the leader created.
Great design leaders are those who intentionally create multiple paths to success.
My guidance for those leading others is to become a stepped leader. Map out the paths for which success can occur and you’ll become the leader you’re expected to be.