There's a peculiar phenomenon in our industry. We spend years building portfolios, perfecting our craft, and advocating for "a seat at the table." We measure our success by org chart placement and budget allocation. We celebrate when design finally reports to the CPO instead of engineering.
And yet, companies with high design maturity, those where design genuinely drives decisions, achieve 32% higher revenue growth and 56% higher shareholder returns than their competitors. The catch? Only 10% of organizations ever reach that level.
The gap isn't what you think.
And yet, companies with high design maturity, those where design genuinely drives decisions, achieve 32% higher revenue growth and 56% higher shareholder returns than their competitors. The catch? Only 10% of organizations ever reach that level.
The gap isn't what you think.
The Invisible Sign Above Your Head
Here's an uncomfortable truth: If you're waiting for the VP of Design title before you start leading, you've already misunderstood what leadership is.
Management comes with a title. It comes with direct reports and budget authority. There's an invisible sign above every manager's head that reads "I can promote or fire you," and people respond accordingly. That's role power, and it's real, but it's not leadership.
Leadership is something else entirely. It's the art of seeing a problem, envisioning a better future, and getting people to lend you their power to make it happen. And here's the radical part: you don't need anyone's permission to do it.
No new title. No expanded authority. Just leadership.
The Question That Changes Everything
Most product teams are drowning in outputs. We ship features, complete sprints, hit velocity targets. We celebrate when we deploy on schedule. We measure success by the artifacts we produce: wireframes delivered, components designed, code pushed.
But here's what we should be asking instead: If we do this work brilliantly, whose life actually gets better, and how?
This isn't a philosophical exercise. It's the difference between a team that ships and a team that transforms.
Take ICA, Singapore that needed to digitize applications. The team could have measured success in outputs: forms designed, error states documented, responsive breakpoints implemented. Instead, they asked that one question and got specific:
"When we do a great job, Mabel won't miss work to stand in line at a government office. She won't struggle with confusing jargon or unclear questions. She'll know exactly where her application is at every step. We're giving her back her time and her peace of mind."
Suddenly, every design decision had weight. Every code review mattered. The team wasn't building forms, they were giving people their afternoons back.
This is the shift from outputs to outcomes. And the data shows it works. Companies that focus on improving users' lives rather than shipping features see measurably higher growth. Not because they care more, but because they aim at the right target.
The Force Multiplier Nobody Talks About Enough
Let's talk about math that sounds too good to be true.
A recent study gave developers two paths: build a component from scratch, or use a design system. The scratch-built version took a median of 4.2 hours. The design system version? 2.0 hours. That's 47% faster.
For a team of ten developers, that's like adding four more developers, without the hiring, onboarding, or desk space.
Another study with designers found 34% time savings when using a design system. A seven-person design team suddenly has the output capacity of ten people.
This is why the best UX leaders don't just build great products, they build systems that make everyone around them better. But here's the critical nuance: design systems fail spectacularly when they become the goal rather than the tool.
I often remind project teams about "the broken promises of design systems", organizations so focused on building the perfect system that they forgot why they were building it. The system became bureaucracy. The sous-vide machine that should make cooking foolproof instead became another thing to maintain.
I often remind project teams about "the broken promises of design systems", organizations so focused on building the perfect system that they forgot why they were building it. The system became bureaucracy. The sous-vide machine that should make cooking foolproof instead became another thing to maintain.
The most effective design systems obsess over one thing: do they help teams improve users' lives faster? If not, they're just documentation with extra steps.
The Contrarian View (That Might Be Right)
Let's get uncomfortable for a moment.
Paul Adams, a design leader at Intercom, gave a talk that made a lot of people angry. His thesis: UX should not be at the center of product development. All those diagrams showing UX at the hub with spokes to engineering, product, and marketing? Wrong.
"The biggest lie in UX," he argued, "is that UX practitioners are 'the voice of the user.' Your sales team talks to customers every day. So does support. They often know customers better than you do."
His call to action? Stop navel-gazing about whether design is valued. Stop drawing diagrams that put yourself at the center. Grow up. Start talking to sales and support more than you talk to other designers.
It's provocative, but there's wisdom in it. The UX leaders achieving real impact aren't the ones demanding recognition, they're the ones collaborating so effectively that recognition becomes inevitable.
What This Actually Means for You
If you're a UX leader, or aspire to be one, here's what matters:1. Stop waiting for the title. You can lead from anywhere in the org chart. See a problem? Envision a better future. Get one person to believe in it. Congratulations, you're leading.
2. Ask the outcomes question religiously. Before every project: "If we do this brilliantly, whose life improves and how?" If you can't answer specifically, you're not ready to start.
3. Build systems, not just designs. Your job isn't to make everything yourself, it's to make everyone around you better at making things. A good design system is your clone army.
4. Collaborate, don't centralize. The strongest UX leaders aren't islands. They're connectors. They make engineering better at thinking about users. They help product managers see opportunities for delight. They teach the whole organization to design.
5. Let go of the victim narrative. If your CEO doesn't understand UX's value, that's not their failure, it's yours. Speak their language. Show outcomes. Demonstrate ROI. The data is overwhelmingly on your side, but you have to make the case.
The Simple Test
Want to know if you're leading or just managing?If you left tomorrow, would people continue the work because they believe in where it's going? Or would they stop because you were the one telling them what to do?
Leaders create movements that outlive their tenure. Managers create dependencies that collapse when they're gone.
The best part? You can start leading right now. You don't need a promotion, a bigger team, or executive buy-in.
You just need a problem worth solving, a vision of a better future, and the courage to ask: "If we do this brilliantly, whose life gets better, and how?"
Answer that question honestly, share that answer widely, and you'll be surprised how many people want to follow.
