Leadership to Elevate Design at Scale: Balancing Conflicting Imperatives

What is it about?

Little is known about how design leaders foster design excellence “at scale” within large organizations. To bridge this gap, this article reports on interviews with 59 senior design leaders. Using a paradox perspective to frame the findings uncovers major challenges when leading design teams inside large organizations. It also identifies five pairs of opposing leadership behaviors that address these tensions and balance the overarching paradox of integrating design into the fabric of an organization while maintaining its distinctive character: being transformative yet affirmative; being directive yet accommodating; being proactive yet responsive; being intuitive yet systematic; and being holistic yet specific.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

------------------------------------------------------- Contribution to Academic Scholarship ------------------------------------------------------- Our article adds to literature on design as an organisational capability by identifying a key challenge for design leaders: the need to integrate design within the fabric of an organisation to realise design-driven outcomes, but also to differentiate design because its uniqueness is what ultimately delivers value. Furthermore, our article shows how framing this challenge according to the tenets of paradox theory can be beneficial as it prevents choosing integration over differentiation (or vice versa). Our study extends paradox literature by proposing specific sets of opposing behaviours by means of which leaders can navigate the paradox of integrating, and yet differentiating, design in organisations. ------------------------------------------------------- Contribution to Management Practice ------------------------------------------------------- Our study highlights the importance of taking a paradoxical perspective to lead in-house design teams. We propose five sets of opposing leadership behaviours to guide design leaders in doing so effectively. Furthermore, our study sensitises leaders on the importance of being fluid and adaptive according to their organisational and business context. While this is no easy task, our research suggests it will support design leaders to elevate design at scale, maximising its impact and value. ---------------------------- Author Perspective ---------------------------- "As co-authors, we have a shared interest in effective design leadership and how to master it in large, established organisations. The author-team is complementary: we approach it from an academic perspective, studying those who lead design teams, and from a practitioner perspective, being hands-on involved in how to lead design teams effectively. Acknowledgement of design as a strategic asset is evidenced by an increasing number of companies building and scaling in-house design teams and extending the influence of design to the executive level. However, not much is known on how to effectively lead design, particularly within large, established organizations. We are particularly intrigued by how to scale design within large organisations in a way that design becomes integrated and valued within the organisation yet also keeps its uniqueness compared to other disciplines, as this ‘differentness’ is what adds value in the first place."