Maeda's Design in Tech Report
Design leadership is highly dependent on personality. I have no idea, yet, how to write about what works best. Personally, I’d see design leadership as being responsible for the work getting done and for team members feeling empowered to make decisions with confidence. Leadership has the privilege of going to stakeholder meetings, but that shouldn’t translate into being sole design decision makers. They should represent the team in a way that facilitates as much shared responsibility and opportunity as possible.
I differentiate between design leadership and, say, a VP of design at a large organization. A VP, or a Chief Design Officer, would own more design decision making and department direction. But a design leader should sit more or less equally on the playing field with the rest of the design team.