Jesse James Garrett

It’s a sign of the times. I’m coaching a lot of design leaders lately who are making big transitions: moving towards different roles, different organizations, different mandates, and different ways of delivering value and finding satisfaction in their work.

Some of them are choosing to find a way out of their orgs—while others are being pushed. Some are seeking a restored connection to meaning and purpose in their work, but aren’t sure what that looks like. Some are looking at product roles and wondering whether the grass really is greener. And some are questioning whether design leadership is even right for them at all.

Whatever their situation, I’m finding a few strong common themes in my work with leaders in transition:

Crafting your transition story: It can be hard to know what to say about an exit—especially if it happened under traumatic circumstances. Having a story that you can reconcile yourself with is essential to being able to tell that story to others with clarity and poise. And even if you did get to choose your exit, you’ll find yourself on better footing when you know what that story says about who you are as a leader and where you’re going.

Reconsidering your identity: You may not be who you thought you were. You may not be who you thought you should be. It doesn’t matter. What matters is: Who are you now? What labels or frames are you still attached to? And what ways of thinking about yourself and your work might you need to leave behind?

Defining your own value proposition: It’s easy to define our value in terms of the past. But a value proposition, by definition, is a statement about the future—a promise of future potential value. When you know the sources of your own strength and the contexts in which those strengths can be most fully realized, you can make that promise with authority.

Whether the motivation for change comes from within us or we have change imposed on us by our circumstances, these times of transition can lead to difficult and uniquely individual questions we’re not used to facing most of the time. But if you take control of the change with intention—and a little of the right support—these times of transition can also help you more fully tap into who you are, what you have to offer, and where you can thrive.