My Leadership Approach and Style
Leaving ego at the door.
I have been in a lead position for over seven years.Five years as a designer/digital producer and three years as the senior or Lead Designer for a project or team. As a news producer, we received the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. In 2020, my design team won the Aegon Bronze Award for redesigning Transamerica’s retirement app. For my MIT work, my team was among the top 3 innovation projects to present to the MIT faculty in February 2024.
All the work represents everyone I worked with on each project. Best team brings the best product. I couldn’t have done it alone.
In the past, my role was to mentor and guide the junior product designers. I enjoyed every minute of it. Empathy is key for creative designers. I remember how hard it was not to have a mentor when I was a junior designer or just starting in the working world. I finally had a great role model, Becky Risch, at the Denver Post. From her mentorship, I learned ego does not have a place in good teamwork.
My mentoring role at XUP Payment with Keybank, the team’s goal was to onboard new businesses in-branch or online. We had a lot of junior designers and ee had to start from scratch, from big picture to detailed prototypes.
As a lead, the overall goal was to work with the stakeholders and guide the design team to implement needed product changes.
Build trust.
The team was new with different skills. I held a teambuilding workshop to get to know each other and see how they work together.
Trust takes time, so I established a weekly team meeting and daily scrum.
Trust with our stakeholders is also important. My goal was to standardize our deliverables and communication with other departments.
Transparency - Team breakdown with deliverables
In the first step, I created a structure by outlining what role within the team as well as highlighting the expertise of each one of us possessed could each one of us can learn from.
Creating a Resource Foundation
I’m a big supporter of a well-thought-out design system, and fostering good design habits (like atomic design) for the system is always growing.
Besides a design system, presentations, wireframes, and all deliverables should be like they came from the same team. Templates saves teammates works and help communicate ideas.
To keep things going – good humor and outlook are key.
Essential rituals—Communication via Slack, email, and conducting workshops on a regular basis are vital. I had open work sessions on Friday, and daily stand-ups were light and focused. Overall, respecting and enjoying working with others brings out the best in a team. I love what I do, and I hope it inspires those who need it on a given day or for a project. My outlook is that we are in the same boat together. No one is alone in facing challenges. 