Jesse James Garrett

It’s exciting to hear about so many companies naming new Chief Design Officers for the first time. But for many design leaders, the path to that role is far from clear.

The truth is that no one gets promoted to the executive level as a reward for their past accomplishments. They’re not going to grant you a C-level title (or often even VP) just because you’ve been doing such an awesome job running a design team.

Keeping the team running at an acceptable level of performance is the baseline for a senior leader. Moving up to the executive level means raising your sights beyond the value proposition of your team. It’s time to ask yourself: What’s your value proposition as a leader?

Executive power structures are always suspended in a delicate state of balance. Adding a new player runs the risk of destabilizing the entire game. The only reason to take on the risk of that executive-level chaos is to seek some meaningful reward.

So what do you have to offer? What voice will you bring to the executive suite that they need to hear? What perspective will you provide that will make them wiser decision makers? How are they better off by inviting you in?

Because as much as you might have internalized the idea that the C-level title is your trophy for a successful career in design leadership, it’s really a bid to be invited to a whole different game. So it’s not the value you delivered in the past that matters. It’s the value you’re going to deliver in the future.

Being able to name that value and claim it—with authenticity and without apology—is one of the biggest struggles I see among my leadership coaching clients. It takes time and space for reflection to separate what we know to be true about ourselves from the muddle of self-doubt and negative reflections that build up over the course of a long career. (Having someone to talk to helps.)

It’s not about what you can prove (mostly). You don’t have to have metrics (necessarily). You don’t have to have case studies (exactly). What you do have to have is a promise: A promise of future potential, for yourself and for everyone around you, and a path towards seeing that promise fulfilled. Tell that story, and your leaders will have a reason to believe you should be invited into the executive game.