That sentence undermines almost everything that follows.
Because if the wave crested in 2019 and is now receding, then the population discussing design leadership today is already filtered.
The people still attending webinars and retreats are not the median case. They are the survivors of a contracting professional market.
This matters.
When a field shrinks, its surviving members naturally interpret the decline as a communication failure rather than a market correction.
The article frames the problem as:
• design leaders failed to articulate value properly
But another possibility is simpler:
Organisations ran the experiment and concluded design leadership delivered less structural value than expected.
That possibility is never examined.
⸻
2. Domain Dependence
The article assumes that design leadership naturally belongs in decisions such as:
• what should be built
• whether something should be built
• how organisations navigate complexity
But historically these decisions belong to:
• product management
• engineering leadership
• commercial leadership
• executive strategy
Design leadership is therefore attempting a domain expansion.
The conflict design leaders experience inside organisations is not merely relational friction.
It is territorial resistance.
Other functions interpret the expansion of design authority as an attempt to appropriate strategic decision space.
The article treats this as a misunderstanding rather than a boundary dispute.
⸻
3. Incentive Gravity
This is where the argument becomes structurally weak.
Corporate incentives are not designed around design outcomes.
Executives are rewarded for:
• revenue
• margin
• delivery speed
• cost control
They are rarely punished for:
• poor interface design
• awkward user experience
• confusing product flows
If design outcomes are not embedded in executive incentives, design leadership will never command durable authority.
The article frames resistance as cultural or political.
But in most organisations it is simply rational incentive alignment.
People optimise the metrics that determine their compensation.
Design rarely sits inside those metrics.
⸻
4. Mimetic Pressure
The article acknowledges the Chief Design Officer wave that crested around 2019.
This wave followed a familiar corporate pattern.
Large organisations frequently adopt roles because competitors do:
• Chief Innovation Officer
• Digital Transformation Lead
• Agile Coach
• Metaverse Strategy Director
These roles emerge during mimetic adoption cycles.
Companies copy each other to signal modernity.
Once the signalling value fades, the roles quietly disappear.
Design leadership likely benefited from the design thinking boom of the 2010s.
Now the mimetic energy has shifted toward AI leadership roles.
The article interprets the decline as a messaging problem.
It may simply be the end of the mimetic cycle.
⸻
5. Narrative Compression
The framework of the article is clean:
Three traps
Two questions
One renewal pathway
But this narrative compresses complex structural forces into a coaching story.
What is missing from the explanation:
• rising interest rates
• tech layoffs
• cost discipline in product teams
• automation of design execution through AI
• consolidation of decision authority in product management
These macro forces explain far more than leadership psychology.
The story is elegant but incomplete.
It converts market contraction into a personal development problem.
⸻
6. Institutional Decay
The article repeatedly describes organisations that:
• hire leaders without mandate
• run constant reorganisations
• create ambiguous roles
This behaviour signals something deeper.
Large organisations are increasingly experimenting with leadership structures they do not fully understand.
Hiring a design leader without authority is not a leadership challenge.
It is organisational confusion.
The reorg culture described in the article reflects institutional instability, not merely leadership ambiguity.
Design leadership became one of the experiments inside this unstable environment.
Now the experiment is being unwound.
⸻
7. Incentive–Identity Conflict
The “Identity Trap” section is the most revealing.
Designers historically derive identity from craft and creation.
Design leadership requires:
• political navigation
• organisational facilitation
• long feedback cycles
The article frames this as a psychological adjustment.
But the deeper tension is identity displacement.
Many designers were promoted into leadership roles inside organisations that never truly valued design as strategy.
So the identity expansion from:
maker → strategist → organisational leader
was not supported by the surrounding system.
The conflict is not internal.
It is structural.
⸻
The Retreat Economy
The final section advertising a leadership retreat in Bergamo reveals a familiar pattern.
When professional fields contract, a parallel industry emerges around them:
• coaching
• retreats
• leadership renewal
• personal transformation
These industries do not solve structural problems.
They monetise the uncertainty of professionals navigating those problems.
In other words:
As design leadership demand declines, the reflection industry around design leadership expands.
This is common across many professions.
⸻
The Structural Paradox
The entire argument revolves around an unresolved contradiction.
Design leadership is framed as both:
essential for navigating modern complexity
and
structurally expendable during budget cuts
If design leadership were truly essential, it would not be one of the first roles removed during organisational contraction.
The fact that it is removable suggests something uncomfortable.
Many organisations discovered they could function without it.
That does not mean design is irrelevant.
It means the specific leadership model developed during the design thinking boom may not have been structurally necessary.
⸻
The Deeper Paradox
The article ends by suggesting a future where:
design becomes a capability distributed through leadership
If that actually happens, something interesting follows.
Design leadership as a distinct profession disappears.
Its thinking becomes absorbed into:
• product leadership
• engineering leadership
• executive strategy
Which means the success of design thinking would simultaneously mark the end of design leadership as a separate institutional role.
The field wins intellectually.
But loses organisational territory.
⸻
Final Hard Plankton Observation
The most revealing feature of the article is not its analysis of organisations.
It is the existence of the conversation itself.
When a professional field produces large volumes of literature about how to justify its own existence inside organisations, it usually signals something important.
Fields that control resources rarely need to defend their legitimacy.
Finance does not.
Law does not.
Engineering rarely does.
Design leadership does because its authority is continuously negotiated rather than structurally embedded.
And negotiations like that never truly stabilise.
They simply continue until the organisation decides the role is either indispensable — or optional.
Interesting interpretation. I’m guessing this is LLM output, but correct me if I’m wrong. The length and style of it has that flavour. The interpretation was almost exactly the inverse of what we were saying, though. 🤷
I absolutely love this and appreciate so much what you are both doing sharing this wisdom to help people and business.
Loved listening back to this, thanks for recording it and putting it up — I'm just going to shout out, Stockholm! from now on.
1. Survivor Bias
The piece openly admits:
the design leadership moment may be over
That sentence undermines almost everything that follows.
Because if the wave crested in 2019 and is now receding, then the population discussing design leadership today is already filtered.
The people still attending webinars and retreats are not the median case. They are the survivors of a contracting professional market.
This matters.
When a field shrinks, its surviving members naturally interpret the decline as a communication failure rather than a market correction.
The article frames the problem as:
• design leaders failed to articulate value properly
But another possibility is simpler:
Organisations ran the experiment and concluded design leadership delivered less structural value than expected.
That possibility is never examined.
⸻
2. Domain Dependence
The article assumes that design leadership naturally belongs in decisions such as:
• what should be built
• whether something should be built
• how organisations navigate complexity
But historically these decisions belong to:
• product management
• engineering leadership
• commercial leadership
• executive strategy
Design leadership is therefore attempting a domain expansion.
The conflict design leaders experience inside organisations is not merely relational friction.
It is territorial resistance.
Other functions interpret the expansion of design authority as an attempt to appropriate strategic decision space.
The article treats this as a misunderstanding rather than a boundary dispute.
⸻
3. Incentive Gravity
This is where the argument becomes structurally weak.
Corporate incentives are not designed around design outcomes.
Executives are rewarded for:
• revenue
• margin
• delivery speed
• cost control
They are rarely punished for:
• poor interface design
• awkward user experience
• confusing product flows
If design outcomes are not embedded in executive incentives, design leadership will never command durable authority.
The article frames resistance as cultural or political.
But in most organisations it is simply rational incentive alignment.
People optimise the metrics that determine their compensation.
Design rarely sits inside those metrics.
⸻
4. Mimetic Pressure
The article acknowledges the Chief Design Officer wave that crested around 2019.
This wave followed a familiar corporate pattern.
Large organisations frequently adopt roles because competitors do:
• Chief Innovation Officer
• Digital Transformation Lead
• Agile Coach
• Metaverse Strategy Director
These roles emerge during mimetic adoption cycles.
Companies copy each other to signal modernity.
Once the signalling value fades, the roles quietly disappear.
Design leadership likely benefited from the design thinking boom of the 2010s.
Now the mimetic energy has shifted toward AI leadership roles.
The article interprets the decline as a messaging problem.
It may simply be the end of the mimetic cycle.
⸻
5. Narrative Compression
The framework of the article is clean:
Three traps
Two questions
One renewal pathway
But this narrative compresses complex structural forces into a coaching story.
What is missing from the explanation:
• rising interest rates
• tech layoffs
• cost discipline in product teams
• automation of design execution through AI
• consolidation of decision authority in product management
These macro forces explain far more than leadership psychology.
The story is elegant but incomplete.
It converts market contraction into a personal development problem.
⸻
6. Institutional Decay
The article repeatedly describes organisations that:
• hire leaders without mandate
• run constant reorganisations
• create ambiguous roles
This behaviour signals something deeper.
Large organisations are increasingly experimenting with leadership structures they do not fully understand.
Hiring a design leader without authority is not a leadership challenge.
It is organisational confusion.
The reorg culture described in the article reflects institutional instability, not merely leadership ambiguity.
Design leadership became one of the experiments inside this unstable environment.
Now the experiment is being unwound.
⸻
7. Incentive–Identity Conflict
The “Identity Trap” section is the most revealing.
Designers historically derive identity from craft and creation.
Design leadership requires:
• political navigation
• organisational facilitation
• long feedback cycles
The article frames this as a psychological adjustment.
But the deeper tension is identity displacement.
Many designers were promoted into leadership roles inside organisations that never truly valued design as strategy.
So the identity expansion from:
maker → strategist → organisational leader
was not supported by the surrounding system.
The conflict is not internal.
It is structural.
⸻
The Retreat Economy
The final section advertising a leadership retreat in Bergamo reveals a familiar pattern.
When professional fields contract, a parallel industry emerges around them:
• coaching
• retreats
• leadership renewal
• personal transformation
These industries do not solve structural problems.
They monetise the uncertainty of professionals navigating those problems.
In other words:
As design leadership demand declines, the reflection industry around design leadership expands.
This is common across many professions.
⸻
The Structural Paradox
The entire argument revolves around an unresolved contradiction.
Design leadership is framed as both:
essential for navigating modern complexity
and
structurally expendable during budget cuts
If design leadership were truly essential, it would not be one of the first roles removed during organisational contraction.
The fact that it is removable suggests something uncomfortable.
Many organisations discovered they could function without it.
That does not mean design is irrelevant.
It means the specific leadership model developed during the design thinking boom may not have been structurally necessary.
⸻
The Deeper Paradox
The article ends by suggesting a future where:
design becomes a capability distributed through leadership
If that actually happens, something interesting follows.
Design leadership as a distinct profession disappears.
Its thinking becomes absorbed into:
• product leadership
• engineering leadership
• executive strategy
Which means the success of design thinking would simultaneously mark the end of design leadership as a separate institutional role.
The field wins intellectually.
But loses organisational territory.
⸻
Final Hard Plankton Observation
The most revealing feature of the article is not its analysis of organisations.
It is the existence of the conversation itself.
When a professional field produces large volumes of literature about how to justify its own existence inside organisations, it usually signals something important.
Fields that control resources rarely need to defend their legitimacy.
Finance does not.
Law does not.
Engineering rarely does.
Design leadership does because its authority is continuously negotiated rather than structurally embedded.
And negotiations like that never truly stabilise.
They simply continue until the organisation decides the role is either indispensable — or optional.
Interesting interpretation. I’m guessing this is LLM output, but correct me if I’m wrong. The length and style of it has that flavour. The interpretation was almost exactly the inverse of what we were saying, though. 🤷