Anyone can be a UX leader, regardless of title or position but effective leadership in UX, like any other field, isn’t just about mastering hard skills. An effective UX leader combines both hard and soft skills like communication, vision settings, and conflict resolution to increase his or her level of influence within an organization.
What makes a great and effective UX leader?
Here are the answers to some expert UX leaders.
– What makes an effective UX leader is someone who knows exactly what roadblocks their practitioners are experiencing. Someone allows them to remove those roadblocks, either themselves or by teaching them how to do that.
– We talk about empathy and it sounds so mushy, but it is true. You want someone who is able to look outside themselves and connect with and understand other people.
– A great UX leader would be somebody who is a steward and a champion of UX. Somebody who is gonna develops and inspires growth in the field and growth of the field. Once people see the value, they’ll be excited and they can be agents of positive change.
– Enthusiasm and being able to communicate those ideas to different people, different stakeholders, and different groups.
– Being able to support your team through some of the challenges that exist in UX today. Be encouraging and be able to drive other leaders in the organization to align with the principals.
– As a leader, you really need to be authentic. You need to inspire people and you need to be able to articulate your vision in a simple manner.
– An effective UX leader is somebody who is able to do two things really well, articulate a vision, and encourage people to find that vision.
We need somebody who has the soft skills to encourage people to be the most curious versions of themselves. Somebody who has the ability to make the hard choices of saying “maybe we’re going in the wrong direction, but at least we learned something from it”.
Reference: https://www.nngroup.com/videos/what-makes-effective-ux-leader/
