For much of the last decade, design leadership was defined by vision.

Design leaders identified the right problems to solve, envisioned better outcomes for customers, and articulated those outcomes in a way the organization could align around.

We have been asked recently to explore how AI might drive productivity across UX. On its own, that is a reasonable question. Productivity is how organizations talk about progress.

As the year comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on the ideas I kept returning to in my writing, and what they reveal about the moment design finds itself in now.

For years, design teams have relied on user personas to understand the people behind the interface. These personas helped us define motivations, needs, frustrations, and the everyday realities people face. However, the environment we design for has fundamentally changed.

Designers are hired to bring new thinking into organizations, and then punished, or resisted, when they actually do it. It’s a tension built into the role. Companies say they want innovation, transformation, and new possibilities, yet often reject the very ambiguity and exploration required to create them.

Design is standing at a crossroads, one unlike any we’ve faced before. For decades, we’ve been the makers of products and shapers of experiences. But now, as intelligence becomes ambient and creation becomes automated …

Leadership has never been about control. At its best, it’s always been about connection and coherence. The greatest leaders have never ruled through command …

Design used to be the means by which we made things beautiful and functional. In the age of AI, it’s how we make things, and organizations, intentional.

Design is not about decorating the edges of technology, it is about shaping how technology works for people. It requires empathy, systems thinking, data literacy, technical fluency, and the courage to cut through complexity with clarity.

Artificial intelligence is changing the way we create. In seconds, AI can sketch a dozen app flows that once took weeks, but without human direction, it’s noise, not design. It feels like magic, but quantity isn’t the same as design.

We’ve lived inside screens of buttons, menus, and workflows designed once and then frozen in time.

But the future of the interface is not a frame.

In enterprise and healthcare software, there’s a long-standing myth. When the work is complex, regulated, and high-stakes, the software doesn’t need to be beautiful. It just needs to function. But I don’t believe that. In fact, I believe the opposite.

Technology untethered from real human need risks becoming spectacle instead of progress. The difference between something that empowers and something that alienates lies not in its features, but in whether it truly serves us.

Leading a team is never easy, but guiding an entire organization through emotionally charged, high-stakes moments requires a distinct skill set.

Here are 9 ways I try to lead through these emotionally charged moments.

Too often, design gets brought in after most of the key business decisions are already made. The PRD’s written, the roadmap’s set, and then: “Hey, design, go make it pretty and easy to use.” If design starts that late it’s playing catch-up.

Design leadership isn’t about a title, it’s about taking initiative, especially in moments of ambiguity. Instead of waiting for clarity or permission, impactful designers use their skills to explore, make sense of the mess, and collaborate with others to move work forward. By staying curious, proactive, and engaged, designers build trust, develop intuition, and grow into leadership through action, not authority.

Great design doesn’t flatten complexity, it makes it navigable, meaningful, and empowering. Because in high-stakes environments like healthcare and enterprise, complexity isn’t a problem to solve, it’s a sign that the work truly matters. The real opportunity isn’t to simplify life, but to support the people doing complex things with clarity, confidence, and care.

The way I lead—at work, at home, and in every role I hold—stems from three core pillars: beauty, wellness, and meaning. These values ground me, guide my decisions, and help me show up with clarity, calm, and purpose in every part of my life.