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Navigating mentorship and leadership
Congratulations! You have probably kickstarted your leadership growth in the area of UX after venturing into this career for a couple of years. This article is written from my own experience of starting on leadership capacity in ST Engineering.
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Yes being a leader means to dynamically adapt based on changing needs
Being a leader means to constantly identify what your team needs to succeed and growing the members towards excellence
Imposter syndrome could feel like a strong game on certain days but its ok to know that we are not superheroes who are able to do and achieve everything. It takes humility and keen observations to grow yourself to be a better leader each day.
What could potentially build an "A" team leadership?
The understanding of individual UX designer core competencies and skillsets build the foundation of leadership done right.
- Matching competencies within a team for optimal productivity
- Setting OKRs and goals for individuals based on their core competencies
Additionally, always make a conclusive decisions only after assessing the diverse perspective of feedback and opinion from the team. Being a leader means you are still constantly growing and learning how to optimise productivity for your team.
Identify enablers towards mentorship
My personal mentorship experience has felt like an uphill battle of experimentation with different frameworks and hands-on learning experience. Some of the advocated enablers includes:
- Communication channels
- Information sharing workshops
- Internal hackathon and creative project for honing of craft execution and critical thinking skills (Future-forward)
Prior to even establishing any formal mentorship, we need to create the RIGHT conditions to nurture growth
The following are some of the nuggets of learnings from a medium article posted by a fellow UX lead. Note: I do not own the knowledge below.
Mentorship done right = Empower the development of critical thinking
If design is an ongoing collaboration between co-creators, as leaders we can help designers to question the whys behind their designs
Giving someone a fish is not a permanent solution to a permanent problem. Instead, cultivating their fishing skills is the crux of mentorship done right. One possibility is to frame thought provoking questions for designers to think beyond their current constraints. Drill down to the why and encourage holistic thinking which encompasses a multitude of use case scenarios. Actively encourage your designers to experiment and create a safe culture where failure is celebrated instead of being frown upon.
Adios! Do continue to check out this reflection piece as I will be updating along with my career growth :D
