Connecting the Dots: Leading Through Strategy, Not Control

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a design leader is this: strategy isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about helping your team see how the answers connect.

Too often, design leadership is viewed as a top-down role. But the truth is, great design doesn’t emerge from a single mind. It comes from alignment—shared vision, clear intent, and a willingness to ask better questions rather than jump to solutions.

Strategy Is a Shared Muscle

When people hear “strategy,” they often think of frameworks, roadmaps, or leadership decks. But strategy, at its core, is about seeing the bigger picture and guiding others toward it.

As a leader, that means helping your team understand:

• Why this problem matters

• How it connects to business goals

• Where we are today—and where we’re trying to go

This is where connecting the dots becomes critical. Designers aren’t just executing screens—they’re making decisions that ripple across user journeys, tech capabilities, and business impact. If they don’t understand the broader context, we can’t expect aligned outcomes.

Everyone Is a Leader on the Team

Leadership isn’t tied to a title. Every designer on a team plays a leadership role:

• Owning their domain

• Making thoughtful tradeoffs

• Influencing through critique and collaboration

As a design lead, my job is to create the conditions for leadership to emerge at every level. That means:

• Clarity over chaos

• Autonomy with support

• Systems that make decision-making easier, not harder

This also means I don’t need to be in every room. I need to make sure the thinking is scalable, and that the team has what they need to make smart, strategic decisions with or without me.

Support Over Supervision

The best support doesn’t come from checking in—it comes from:

• Giving context

• Asking better questions

• Creating safety to explore, push back, and iterate

A designer might need space to think one day and tight alignment the next. Good leadership flexes between both—knowing when to lean in and when to step back.

The Real Work: Creating Alignment

So much of our time is spent designing for users. But some of the most impactful work we do is designing alignment—with PMs, with engineers, and with each other.

And that means:

• Holding space for ambiguity

• Translating vision into actionable steps

• Helping each person see how their work connects to something bigger

When teams are aligned, design gets sharper. Faster. More confident. And more fun.

Final Thought

We don’t need more control in design leadership—we need more clarity, curiosity, and connection.

Whether you’re leading a team or leading a design problem, remember: strategy isn’t a deck. It’s a conversation. One that invites others in and empowers them to move forward—aligned, informed, and ready to lead from wherever they are.