Lessons Learned as a UX Manager: A Journey in Design Leadership
Stepping into a UX Manager role has been both a rewarding and a challenging experience for me. It’s a shift from focusing solely on design to balancing strategy, managing the team and stakeholders, cross-functional collaboration, conflict resolution and more. Over the years, I’ve learned valuable lessons that have shaped my leadership approach. Here are some key takeaways from my journey.
Advocating for UX
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Balancing user-centered design with business goals can be challenging, but leveraging user research helps tell compelling stories that keep user needs at the core. Data-driven design and aligning UX with product strategy are key to gain stakeholder’s buy-in.
UX Vision and Strategy
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To develop a solid UX vision and strategy, foundational research is essential to empathize with users and fully understand their pain points. Data on user behavior and product performance helps create a compelling narrative. This user story, combined with business goals, forms the foundation of my UX vision and strategy.
Collaboration is key
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UX doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Strong partnerships with Product Management, Engineering and other stakeholders are critical. Early technical feasibility, upfront cross-functional collaborations prevent misalignment and rework. Open communication with the team builds a better product outcome.
As much as I support my team, I’ve learned the importance of influencing leadership as well. Effectively resenting insights, communicating vision, and aligning with executive priorities are essential daily skills. Clarity in thought and communication are crucial soft skills that I continue to hone.
Managing up is just as important
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Mentorship
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As a new leader, stepping back from hands-on design work wasn’t easy. However, I quickly realized that my success as a UX Manager depends on my team’s growth. Providing mentorship, coaching, and creating opportunities for designers to shine has a far greater impact than perfecting a single design myself.
Project Management
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Strong project management skills have helped me set identify design milestones, optimize processes, allocate resources, assess risks for a timely delivery. PM skills also helped with managing shifting priorities, cross-team collaboration and ensuring data-driven design decisions while balancing business needs.
Continuous learning
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UX is constantly evolving. Staying curious, learning from peers, attending industry events, and seeking feedback have helped me grow as a leader. I recently attended IDEO’s AI workshop which opened my eyes to how gen AI can augment my UX skills.
Learning from mistakes
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UX design has taught me humility and openness to the reality that mistakes happen. No design is perfect, and projects can fail even weeks before launch. A good UX practitioner gathers data, defines new KPIs, iterates, and moves forward.
Developing soft-skills
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Soft skills are as essential for Design Managers as design skills are. They have enabled effective collaboration, influence across teams and help articulate design vision. Emotional intelligence helped me support my team member’s growth. Developing these skills have helped me drive meaningful impact.
Jump in as a Designer
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There have been times when I had to jump in as a Designer, switch context, and diver deeper into the world of design patterns and systems. While it is always exhillarating to design, the shift between global versus detailed thinking have been challenging as well as rewarding.
Being a UX Manager is more than just leading a team—it’s about championing the user, driving business impact, and fostering a culture of design excellence. The journey is filled with challenges, but the opportunity to shape great user experiences and help designers grow makes it incredibly rewarding.
Final thoughts