Nina Jurcic — Design manager, designOps & design systems consultant at Independent
Design rituals to unlock your teams' potential
September 5, 2023
10:00
Collaboration
🇬🇧 English
Collaboration
The Artist Way to Leadership
About
Many organizations and communities have a technological debt, and they also have a leadership debt. When you join a new place, you are presented with an implicit and undefined set of assumptions on how to lead. I guess it is an amalgamation of the ghosts of the past and present leaders, with their good and bad habits amplified by the general organizational culture. So, it is safe to assume that there is no single answer to the question of what ‘good’ leadership is in a place you find yourself. Any answer you come up with is a good one as long as you feel that your approach suits you and helps others around you develop their potential. You probably already have a sense of what you appreciate about the leaders, supervisors, and managers you met on your path so far and what you want to avoid at any cost. Let's unpack how to find out what leader you want to become.
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From the recording
Talk in brief
Leadership is presented as a creative practice that develops through experimentation, reflection, and repeated action rather than through promotion or reading alone. The talk introduces leadership debt, invites participants to map where their working time goes, and shares evidence from a development program in which people tested the reality of management before pursuing it. Writing and observation practices help leaders notice their own patterns. The result is a more personal definition of leadership, grounded in the needs of a specific organization and a deliberate choice about responsibility.
Key takeaways
- 01
Prevent leadership debt from accumulating
Unresolved expectations, conflicts, and people decisions compound like technical debt and eventually restrict what a team can accomplish.
Watch from 2:40 - 02
Develop leadership through experiments
Books can supply ideas, but capability grows when people try behaviors, observe consequences, adjust, and repeat in their actual environment.
Watch from 8:15 - 03
Map the real allocation of attention
A time wheel reveals what an organization currently rewards and creates a concrete basis for redesigning the leadership role.
Watch from 15:05 - 04
Test motivation before pursuing promotion
Experiencing leadership work helps people distinguish personal motivation from status, family expectations, or a conventional career ladder.
Watch from 28:21 - 05
Use writing to observe yourself
A regular reflective practice makes recurring reactions and assumptions visible, giving leaders material they can intentionally change.
Watch from 40:59
Read edited transcript highlights
These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.
Postponed people problems become structural constraints
Teams accumulate leadership debt when expectations remain ambiguous, conflicts are left unresolved, and difficult decisions are repeatedly deferred. Each omission makes the next change harder because people begin to plan around uncertainty. Paying down that debt means naming the issue, creating a conversation, and accepting short-term discomfort before the constraint becomes part of the culture.
Watch from 2:40Leadership capability is built in the environment
Reading can introduce a technique, but it cannot show how a particular team will respond to it. Leadership develops through small experiments: try a new conversation, delegation boundary, or meeting pattern; observe what changes; and refine the behavior. Failure is useful when the experiment is contained and the leader remains accountable for its effect.
Watch from 8:15A calendar reveals the practiced role
The activities that consume a leader’s week tell a more accurate story than the job description. Mapping time across meetings, individual support, decisions, strategy, and hands-on work makes hidden tradeoffs visible. The wheel does not need to be balanced, because organizations differ, but its shape should be intentional and connected to what the team needs.
Watch from 15:05A trial can clarify the desire to lead
Giving people realistic leadership experiences before promotion helps them ask better questions. They can discover whether they want the responsibility itself or only the recognition attached to it. Some will proceed with greater confidence, while others may choose deeper specialist work. Both outcomes are healthier than entering management through an unexamined career convention.
Watch from 28:21Reflection turns experience into reusable learning
Writing immediately and without performance pressure creates a record of concerns, impulses, and repeated narratives. Over time, patterns become easier to see. The practice does not supply automatic answers, but it gives a leader enough distance to question a reaction before carrying it into a high-stakes conversation or decision.
Watch from 40:59
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