Product Design Reference

Good Managers

Introduction

When Andrea Stella was questioned about his leadership of the McLaren Formula 1 team following their resurgence after he assumed the Team Principal role in 2022, he said:

"It is to enable, genuinely, not as a slogan, teamwork. Where teamwork has a clear direction where the team is going and everyone feels they want to contribute because they feel they have a role here. I want that to the point that I don’t even want to appear because that's about the team. I am an enabler."

Andrea's reluctance to take praise for what he views as the achievements of the team speaks volumes as to why McLaren quickly rose through the ranks of the other nine teams to challenge the leaders, Red Bull.

Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, defines leadership as the following:

"A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential."

There can be little doubt that management and leadership revolve around people and teams, with a manager's primary role being to act as an enabler and a force multiplier.

Habits of Good Managers

Good managers tend to do these things:

  • Have regular 1:1 meetings with direct reports to offer support and feedback.

  • Use 1:1 meetings to discuss development, goals, and challenges, not just tasks.

  • Never take credit for others' work; always recognise and celebrate their achievements.

  • Provide constructive feedback regularly and promptly.

  • Set clear goals and expectations for your team.

  • Encourage open communication, making team members feel comfortable sharing ideas.

  • Lead by example, demonstrating the values and behaviours you expect.

  • Show empathy and support, addressing both personal and professional challenges.

  • Foster a culture of recognition, acknowledging and rewarding efforts.

  • Invest in professional development, offering training and growth opportunities.

  • Maintain transparency by sharing relevant information about goals and changes.

  • Be adaptable, adjusting strategies based on changing circumstances.

  • Delegate effectively, giving team members ownership of their work.

  • Build and maintain trust through reliability and integrity.

  • Encourage collaboration and teamwork, promoting a cooperative environment.

  • Manage conflicts constructively, addressing issues fairly and promptly.

  • Promote work-life balance by respecting personal time and encouraging healthy boundaries.

  • Seek and act on feedback, showing a willingness to improve and adapt.

  • Communicate the vision and purpose clearly, ensuring the team understands the overall goals.

  • Create a safe environment for experimentation, allowing team members to take risks and learn.

  • Maintain a positive attitude to inspire and motivate the team through challenges.

  • Be approachable and available for team members to discuss concerns or ideas.

  • Set a clear direction, providing guidance to keep the team focused and motivated.

  • Encourage innovation, fostering creativity and new ideas.

  • Manage resources wisely, ensuring team members have the tools and support they need.

  • Be consistent in decision-making, applying rules and policies fairly and transparently.

The Consensus on Effective Management

Tobias Charles

If you want to be a better leader, you need to make peace with these things writes Tobias Charles writes in his 2023 article: 5 Hard to Swallow Leadership Pills That Will Make You a Better Boss"

  1. Everything is your fault

  2. It's not about how good you are. It's how good you can get others to be.

  3. It doesn’t matter what you do. What matters is what gets done.

  4. Best case scenarios aren't where you should focus.

  5. Being the leader doesn’t mean people will follow you.

Kip Knight

Kip Knight shares some time-tested leadership principles in his 2024 article "Mastering Modern Leadership: Top Principles for Effective Team Leaders"

  1. The role of a leader is to build the business and grow the team…at the same time.

  2. Appreciation is the most valuable currency your team wants and needs.

  3. Praise in public, coach in private.

  4. You aren’t just the team leader…you are the head talent scout and training coach.

  5. As team leader, EQ and CQ are more important than IQ.

  6. Teach your team to bring you solutions, not just problems.

  7. Ensure your team understands and commits to the “disagree and commit” principle.

  8. If you love drama, go to the theater because drama at work can ruin your business.

  9. Make sure you and your team members “stay in your lane.”

  10. Sometimes, a team member must find their “happy place” somewhere else.

Tobias Charles

Tobias Charles writes in his 2024 article "Subtle Ways to Be a Brilliant Boss"

  • Be ice cool

  • Build relationships founded on trust and respect

  • Make people feel seen

  • Be decisive

  • Get the right things done

Dan Cooper

Dan Cooper mentions 5 points in his 2024 article "Management vs. Leadership"

  1. Point #1: You design the system

  2. Point #2: You don’t always need to motivate them, you just need to not demotivate them

  3. Point #3: It should be unbelievably easy to interrupt you

  4. Point #4: Square up

  5. Point #5: Delegate within reason

Tobias Charles

Tobias Charles speaks about 4 traits of high performing leaders in his 2024 article "Reliable Traits of Genuinely High Performing Leaders"

  1. Self-belief paired with humility

  2. Decisiveness

  3. A bias for action

  4. Thinking like a gymnast, not a sumo wrestler

UX Survival Guide

In the article "What you need to know if you’re a designer thinking of getting into management" from UX Survival Guide, the primary responsibilities for a design manager were, very succinctly, listed as:

  1. Team performance & stakeholder management

  2. Resourcing talent

  3. Crafting objectives

  4. Report performance & career progression

  5. Team cadence & schedule

  6. Meetings, meetings, & more meetings

  7. Admin

Tobias Charles

Tobias Charles had 6 traits to look out for in a good manager in his 2024 article "This Is How You Spot A Manager Who’s Genuinely Great"

  1. They are a great communicator

  2. They’re responsible (and you trust them)

  3. They always want to learn and never think they know it all

  4. They’re emotionally intelligent

  5. They’re excellent motivators

  6. They know how to support people

Zalando

The Zalando Product Design team had the following advice in their 2024 article "10 ways to enable your whole team to shine"

  1. Work with traits, not types

  2. Understand your team as people

  3. Balance group activities

  4. Set an agenda

  5. Value icebreakers

  6. Support each other by sharing skills

  7. Establish a common language

  8. Cultivate psychological safety

  9. Guide teamwork through principles and processes

  10. Make an effort to acknowledge everyone

Nate Schloesser

In his 2023 article "How to NOT Be a Bad Design Manager" Nate Schloesser gives his top six tips based on his own experiences and mistakes made as a manager.

  1. Encourage Learning From Failure

  2. Foster Autonomy and Ownership

  3. Create Opportunities for Challenges

  4. Have Your Team’s Back

  5. Develop, Motivate, Support & Utilize

  6. Make Time For Your Team

Tarryn Lambert

Tarryn Lambert gives 21 pieces of advice for managers in her 2023 article "20 lessons for new design managers".

  1. Hiring a team is nerve-racking, but fun.

  2. Firing someone is emotionally exhausting.

  3. Being transparent can be a gift and a weakness.

  4. Build relationships with other managers.

  5. Start with a good foundation.

  6. It’s not about you, it’s about your team.

  7. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

  8. What made you successful before, might not work now.

  9. Let go of control. Trust. Delegate.

  10. Give feedback often and quickly.

  11. Ask for feedback from above and below.

  12. Make the decision.

  13. Don’t be scared to hire people who are better than you.

  14. Team building activities are worthwhile.

  15. Patience is key.

  16. Design leaders are different.

  17. Scope. Scope. Scope.

  18. Take care of yourself.

  19. Carve out time to think.

  20. If it’s for you, it’ll feel right.

  21. Don’t try to be someone else - be yourself.

Jorge Valencia

Jorge Valencia shares 7 lessons in his 2023 article "7 lessons learned in my painful transition from IC to manager"

  1. What made you a great IC won’t make you a great manager

  2. You don’t need to be a manager to be a leader

  3. To be a manager you need to be good at the bench not an expert in the field

  4. You need to sharpen your soft skills to survive

  5. It's not a dictatorship, but it’s not a democracy either

  6. Management can be a lonely job

  7. It’s not about you; it’s about the team

UX Survival Guide

An article from UX Survival Guide in 2024 "Most design leaders suck" outlined the traits of good leadership.

  1. Prove it.

  2. Give kudos.

  3. Check in.

  4. Back them up.

  5. Trust them.

  6. Create psychological safety.

Mat Venn

Mat Venn had some salient thoughts on running a design team in his 2024 article "On design leadership..."

  1. Hire the best

  2. Hire with your heart

  3. Kindness is *EVERYTHING*

  4. Don't be evil

  5. 1:1's

  6. Teach 'Relationshipping'

  7. Tell truth to power

  8. Learn to care less

  9. Go on holiday more

Sivan Hermon

Sivan Hermon listed the signs that someone might be a good fit for management in her 2024 article "Starting with No: Why Most People Shouldn’t Be Managers"

  1. A good day at work is when you help someone get better at something.

  2. You take joy in uplifting others.

  3. You feel guilty when the team fails.

  4. You feel happy when the team succeeds.

  5. You keep thinking about ways to help the team and individuals improve their skills and capabilities.

  6. People follow your leadership and respond well to your ideas. It doesn’t have to be constantly; you’ll get better, but some signal is good.

  7. You act as the gel between people.

  8. You have ideas and the desire to make processes better.

  9. You are a good communicator: active listener, empathetic (can understand other’s view), notice and read body language (words are only part of the story).

UXPin

In their 2023 article "The Persona of a Great Design Leader" UXPin shared their qualities of an effective design leader as well as design team best practices according to Cindy Alvarez.

Qualities of an Effective Design Leader

  1. Great design leaders are seasoned practitioners, ready to give up the craft

  2. Great design leaders are empathetic and generous with their time

  3. Great design leaders are preachers and listeners

  4. Great design leaders are goal-oriented fighters

Design Team Leadership best practices

  1. Demand objectives from the people you’re working with

  2. Shine some light on the design process

  3. Fight for what you believe in (pragmatically)

  4. Be clear on what you will deliver and when

  5. Recover and compensate

  6. Always be thinking about how we could be doing things better or smarter

Rei Inamoto

Rei Inamoto says there is no such thing as a perfect boss but lists seven traits that might help identify the good ones in the article "Seven traits of a good boss"

  1. Motivate

  2. Have a superpower

  3. Take action

  4. Have our back

  5. Listen to our needs

  6. Care about us

  7. Admit mistakes

Vinita Bansal

Vinita Bansal, author of the book "Rethink Imposter Syndrome" penned the article "6 Micro Habits of Highly Effective Managers"

  1. Don't let fear win

  2. Stay away from naysayers

  3. Actively deal with cognitive biases

  4. Lift others up

  5. Operate within the circle of influence

  6. Match energy with the physical and mental demands of work

Avi Siegel

Avi Siegel speaks about why the transition from IC to new manager is difficult and also what new managers should both stop, and start, doing in his article "Stop Working - You're a Manager Now"

Why the transition is so mind-bendingly painful

  1. You’re dealing with office politics for the first time

  2. You have no training for any of this

  3. You’re going to disappoint people

What not to do anymore

  1. Stop believing you can keep doing the same work

  2. Stop thinking success is about you

  3. Stop solving every problem yourself

What to start doing

  1. Start being overly transparent and building trust

  2. Start getting out of your comfort zone

  3. Start being an advocate and champion

Jan Cavelle

In her article "What Bad Managers Stop Doing to Be Great" Jan Cavelle writes about a good managers ability to develop specific ways of behaving.

  1. They stop doing and start managing

  2. They stop thinking “I” and start thinking “team”

  3. They maximize emotional intelligence

  4. They let go of what they can’t control

  5. They leave their egos behind them

Vinita Bansal

In her article "How to Keep Your Team’s Morale High", Vinita discusses the importance of keeping team morale high and lists 5 ways a manager can do this:

  1. Align Career Aspirations with the Right Opportunities

  2. Establish Clear Decision Boundaries

  3. Don’t Treat Mistakes as Personal Failings

  4. Involve Them in Strategy, Not Just Execution

  5. Give Them Visibility Beyond Team Boundaries

Further Reading

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