My first step into people leadership came on the first day of lockdown. I had my review conversation, and found out about my promotion. My reaction was excitement and terror at the same time. I knew how hard people management would be, but in a pandemic? What did I sign up for?
My husband is an essential worker so he continued to work outside the home and that same week my son’s preschool closed. I became a teacher, childcare provider, and people leader in the same week. We also slowed hiring to prepare for the pandemic so my prior role wasn’t quickly replaced so I continued to design.
Although this last year was very chaotic, at the same time very rewarding. I am so very thankful for such a wonderful team this last year. Here is what I’ve learned so far:
- Check in on your team in times of crisis. I repeat, check in on your team in times of crisis. Some will want to talk, some won’t. Over time as you build a relationship with them, they will open up more as they trust you. You’ll learn more about what they need and how they uniquely operate during tough times. Cancel any nonessential meetings too.
- Don’t pretend to know everything. Show vulnerability, but make sure they know you are on this journey together.
- It’s ok to share frustrations you have. It validates their feelings and makes you human.
- Spend considerable time thinking about critical feedback wording and position it as growth opportunities. Sometimes it’s good to write it out first to gather your thoughts.
- Make space for your team to do delightful projects outside the day to day. That passion will ripple across your team.
- Elevate your team’s work. It’s not about you, it’s about the success of your team that shows your impact. Give them opportunities to share work with leadership, share and attribute work those team members with the larger design community, and share wins with your leaders. The visibility you provide will pave the way for their growth.
- Accept you are going to say the wrong thing or make a bad decision. Apologize when you do and recognize when someone on your team points something out you missed.
- Encourage team members to have skips with your manager so they can gather feedback so you can grow. Encourage them to chat or schedule chats with senior design leaders in the company too.
- Find ways for your team to get to know each other, try to find water cooler opportunities or pairings for those connections.
- For large projects, let your leads know they will make a mistake and it’s expected. Remind them they are part of a larger team that is looking out for the success of the work too. This will hopefully prevent them from feeling overwhelmed and scared to dive in.
- Make space for your own mental health. Before I had part-time childcare in place, I was struggling to give good critique to my team. My boss sensed I was getting burnt out and strongly suggested I use our extra pandemic PTO and started to take one day a week off until I found coverage. This allowed me to have one day where I could fully focus on my son’s homeschooling and be more focused on the days I was working.
- Listen, and I mean really listen. Repeat back what you heard to make sure you heard it correctly.
- Stop trying to find a fix for everything, you can’t. You have a team of incredible experts that probably have better ideas than you do anyway. Focus on framing and coaching so they can find the answer.
- You are going to be exhausted. Really exhausted. By Friday I don’t want to talk to anyone (and I’m an extrovert!).
- You will feel like you don’t know what you are doing and have so much going on and at the same time feel like you aren’t doing anything at all.
- Try new ways of working, get feedback from the team and your peers and keep tweaking.
- Find and establish relationships with other design managers. It will give you ideas, place to vent, and a critical support system on this new journey.
- If you are newly transitioning to design leadership from being an IC you’ll probably feel the need to be a maker. Find a creative hobby outside of work to tap into your creative side.
- Find design leaders to connect with outside of your role for support.
- Have fun and don’t forget to laugh!
