Your success in choosing the appropriate career topology and marching ahead tactfully has brought you this far. Trust was established and your design leadership career is on the upswing.
You’re a veteran now and walking towards the bridge that brings you from Director to VP land. Pro tip — don’t look down. The valley below is littered with resumes full of good, talented folks who stumbled navigating this path. If getting across the bridge is your goal then your success rides on your ability to discard most of the tactical tools that got you here.
Decisions that you used to make very deliberately after digesting many data points are now made quickly, based on less information. Decisions you used to be at the tail end of you’ll now be spending months discussing with other leaders. Your new friends are ambiguity and maniacal prioritization.
Directors are successful when they can build a great team within their department. VP’s are successful when they can create business value across multiple departments. Directors say yes a lot. VP’s say no a lot.
Directors are successful when they can build a great team within their department. VP’s are successful when they can create business value across multiple departments.
At this juncture you should be spending 30% of your time recruiting and 20% skill-building and promoting. The org chart is going to feel like a 5-in-1 tool that you are constantly pulling out of your back pocket.
You’ll need to trade in the microscope for binoculars. Your ability to look 12–18 months out will usurp weekly sprint schedules.
At some point you’ll encounter a fork in the road. Focus on the shiny new thing or continue with iterative improvement of the core product. Before you take on the new shiny thing — look at who is sponsoring it, what the projected headcount is, and dig into the why.
Your domain expertise may take a back seat to a more objective POV. Shared goal communication will take the lead. In previous years there was a 60% department / 40% core business lens. You’ll need to flip that ratio this year.
In my experience, most design leaders fail not because of their design skills, or people management or business acumen but rather their inability to understand and support another department leader’s POV.
Years 3–5 are the Spartan Race you trained for. Pace yourself.
Ian Alexander
VP of Design — writing on leadership, AI product strategy, and building teams that ship.