Andy first came to prominence in our industry as a designer and web standards enthusiast. He was driven by a desire to improve and professionalise the industry, which is how he came to start the UKs first user experience consultancy, Clearleft. He never set out to be a design leader, but now find himself leading a team of thirty people, almost by accident.
In a quest to understand what makes a great leader, and help his friends in newly minted leadership positions, Andy started the Leading Design conference and Slack community last year. Over the past 18 months, Andy has interviewed dozens of prominent leaders and listened in on hundreds of Slack conversations about the art and craft of leadership.
In this session, Andy recounts his journey into leadership, shares his successes and failures, and the important lessons he’s learned on the way. The result is a talk packed full of design leadership heuristics suitable for leaders of all shapes, sizes, levels and seniorities.
82. Lead Principal Director VP
A leading performer who
prefers to manage projects
over managing people.
Indispensable individual
contributor.
Dynamic leader, focused on
strategic vision, growing
talent and execution
Articulate a compelling
vision; help run the company
Depth, expertise, innovation,
persuasion, strategic,
confidence; programs not
projects
Breadth, mentorship,
evangelism, thought
leadership, visionary,
storytelling
Mentorship, new value
creation, organization-wide
leadership, planning;
operations
Recruiting and hiring;
establishing culture;
accountability; vision,
evangelism
Leads the delivery of
shipped products; Delivered
successful work at the scope
of ‘product areas’
Leads teams in framing and
solving hard problems; has
driven innovative efforts that
uncovered new value with
new kinds of experiences;
presents company as an
industry leader in design
Significant management
experience (teams up to 10
people); recruited and hired
teams
Successfully run design
organizations (of around
10-15 or fewer);
Demonstrated ability to
engage executive
leadership across the
company