Six steps for being a design thinker oriented leader

If you have the ability to understand design not as an aesthetic coat but rather a step by step method to solve meaningful and chaotic problems, you can benefit from it and use it for the greater good of your team.   

Design thinking leadership is not exclusive to designers.

For sure you had to lead teams or initiatives in uncertain and challenging times through great expectations and with the constant menace of an unpredictable future over your head. If you have the ability to understand design not as an aesthetic coat but rather a step by step method to solve meaningful and chaotic problems, you can benefit from it and use it for the greater good of your team. Either if you are in a state where you want to know more about design thinking or you want to know what design thinking can do for you, the next natural step is to be the leader provoking change through design. Incorporate these key factors into your mindset and be ready to be a better lead through a design mindset.

Six simple steps that you can adopt today.

1. Start connecting the dots: a great part of being a leader is all about connecting the dots. An eminent-visual approach, such as design thinking, can be crucial in order to put over your table a set of tools, like graphic facilitation, to start drawing your way to success.
2. Improve through feedback: hearing what your users (or team members, in case you’re in a leadership position) have to say is very important to keep an always-improving mindset. Take into account everything and act consequently. Ask regularly. And ask good questions.
3. See the world in terms of problems and solutions: start thinking about the root causes of the problems that you’re facing in your work environment. Don’t be afraid of asking “Why?” and keep doing so until you find what’s really going on. Match the problems that you find with tailored, evidence-based solutions.
4. Cultivate empathy: design thinking is well known for promoting an empathy-based approach. Start understanding how your team feels and longs. Consider using tools such as the empathy map to do it in a structured way.
5. Promote a radical communication culture: move further away than “just conversations”. Start implementing an enterprise culture that uses communication in disruptive ways, such as using Gamestorming techniques to provoke meaningful conversations.
6. Prototype your vision: do not settle with prototyping just products. Start thinking about how you can spread your vision as a leader in a more meaningful way based on small experiments. Let people know about what you want from the future by start building it.

In case you’re interested in being part of a new generation of innovative leaders building the future as it emerges, we’re holding this month a Professional Certification that will give you the knowledge and tools to simply make things work.

Want to take the next step? Just write to us.

https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/10-amazing-leadership-lessons-from-design-thinking/

https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/qualities-of-design-thinking-leaders/