Just wanted to post this up here. These are my thoughts on Design Leadership that I posted on Johnny Holland Magazine.

The number one key ingredient is the ability to serve.
Without service, a leader is not a leader, but simply a boss.
Serving others is leading from the back, not the front.
Anyone can lead from the front like a manager, director, team lead, etc., But not everyone can lead from the back like a coach or a grand parent.
Leaders place their followers in front of them so that they can shine. If the followers are shining, receiving credit, and feeling valued, this reflects on the leader.
If the leader is the one who’s shining and getting the credit then they are simply an egocentric individual.

Leaders extract the best from people. They bring you up to their level instead of keeping you down.

If they write a book, they’ll either serve by teaching a few concepts to newbs for free, or you’ll hear them talking about how no one else is as good as them because they have a book.
Serving your followers makes your followers feel special. They will be attracted to you naturally.

People say that a leader needs to have vision. Blow it out your ear. The people need to have the vision, the leader needs to install belief into their followers so that the people can believe that they can obtain that vision.

I’ve been part of a leadership building team that meets regularly for the last 15 years. What makes some of the best leaders are the people who are raising up new and young comers to become great leaders themselves.

Here are some sample to know if you are a leader or not.

If you call yourself a leader and can’t be bothered to help a complete stranger for free in the late hours of the night from an emergency last minute call or Tweet- you’re not a leader.

If you have tons of people following you for your knowledge on Twitter but you yourself constantly wreak of sarcastic comments and cruel remarks to others- you’re not a leader.

If you pride yourself on being in the minority of cliques, special events, conference dinners with other senior co-workers, authors and friends that you want to be associated with but can’t take the time to treat a newbie to dinner and instil values to them while the other hot shots are partying it up- you’re not a leader.

If you fuel the fires of pride by entering comments on only “respected” peer blogs that you deem valuable, but can’t take the time to enter a nice comment on someone else’s blog even though what they’re saying is bang-on – you’re not a leader.

If you go to conference and tweet “Oh my gosh he/she is so correct I love you @person’sname you are god” to the same speakers year after year after year, but don’t encourage new people to speak or are not interested in what they have to say- you’re not a leader.

If you don’t respond to a stranger on Twitter even though you know what they said to you was of great importance and inspired you, and they’ve been following you for 3 years and you don’t want to befriend them but can take the time to say “#poopin” to a fellow Sr. co-worker- you’re not a leader.

Being a leader is not easy. It’s uncomfortable, challenging and draining. People will always have needs, people will always never “get it” and people will always need things explained to them.

If you can take 5 minutes to sketch something out on a napkin to a complete stranger who asked you a question but doesn’t understand the concept of design, you are a leader.

If you take that person out for coffee to sketch out that design and explain it to them in further detail, you are a leader.

If you befriend that person and follow up on them, offer help, reviews and critiques every so often and build a relationship purely by chance over an extended period of time, you are a great leader.