The Invisible Work of Design Leadership
#010: Why your job isn’t pixels — it’s patterns, politics, and permission.
When people ask what design leaders do, the answers tend to orbit around team management, cross-functional alignment, or setting a vision.
But the most meaningful work we do is often invisible — because it happens in the spaces between the visible:
Between a stakeholder’s idea and a team’s execution
Between what’s asked for and what’s actually needed
Between leadership mandates and user needs
Let me give you a real example.
Pattern: Solution-ing from the Top
We had a persistent challenge: executives and stakeholders were constantly handing down “solutions” — often half-baked, rarely validated, and usually driven by gut or anecdote. Naturally, this led to team frustration, a feeling of disempowerment, and eventual burnout.
But arguing against a senior executive’s idea isn’t exactly a high-survivability strategy.
So we shifted the frame.
Every solution — from a senior leader, stakeholder, PM, designer, or engineer — became a hypothesis. The first move was aligning on the actual customer problem the solution aimed to address. Once that was clear, the team could pose its own hypotheses and run lightweight experiments: concept tests, prototypes, or even live A/Bs. The best idea would win — leadership’s or the team’s — because it would be backed by real-world data.
In the beginning, we did this quietly. It was safer that way. In some environments, even calling something a "hypothesis" can be seen as undermining authority.
But once the results came in — once revenue went up, once friction went down — it became harder to argue with. And easier to build buy-in.
The Real Work Wasn’t the Experiments — It Was the Conditions That Made Them Possible
The experiments were the surface. But the real leadership work happened beneath that — and almost no one saw it.
What I was actually doing was giving my team the space, support, and strategy to operate differently. I call this the invisible side of design leadership — and it’s often where your greatest leverage lives.
It comes down to three core behaviors:
1. Patterns – Spotting and Shaping Systemic Behaviors
Design leaders aren’t just solving problems. We’re scanning for patterns — repeated behaviors, bottlenecks, and decision loops that reveal deeper dysfunctions.
In this case, “solution-first” thinking was a pattern that kept showing up. Rather than fighting it directly, we reframed it as a hypothesis pipeline. Same energy, new structure.
This kind of pattern work is slow and often thankless. But when you change the system around the work, the work gets better — and the team starts to thrive.
2. Politics – Navigating Power and Influence Without the Title
Politics isn’t a dirty word. It’s just the landscape of influence — who gets heard, who gets funded, who gets grace.
Helping a team do its best work often means doing invisible political work:
Translating design ideas into stakeholder language
Coaching your team to align with business priorities without losing integrity
Giving execs just enough ownership of the idea that they become advocates instead of blockers
In this case, we didn’t challenge leadership’s ideas outright. We included them in the process — by positioning their proposals as one possible hypothesis among others. That subtle shift defused tension and kept forward momentum.
3. Permission – Protecting Time, Trust, and the Right to Think
The best design work doesn’t come from burnout or fear. It comes from trust and space. And it’s our job to create both.
Early on, I gave the team cover to explore — even when it meant breaking from the “official” roadmap. I took the risk upstairs so they didn’t have to. I reminded them that thinking is doing. That they were allowed — expected — to question assumptions. And I coached them until experimentation became part of their professional identity.
Eventually, their work earned credibility. They weren’t just shipping features anymore — they were helping shape the strategy. They were invited into annual planning. They were creating Lighthouse concepts — future-focused prototypes that helped align fragmented efforts across departments into a shared, aspirational user experience.
But that permission had to be built, protected, and reinforced daily.
Invisible Work Is Leadership Work
If you’re a design leader, chances are your most valuable work doesn’t show up in Figma. It shows up in:
The strategy decks your team never saw, but that made their work possible
The quiet reframing that defused conflict
The hard conversations you absorbed so your team could focus
The culture that forms when people feel safe and seen
Invisible work is real work. And the more senior you get, the more your impact comes from shaping systems, not artifacts.
Curious to hear from others:
What invisible work are you doing right now?
How do you name it, protect it, or share it with others?