Never be afraid to let them see you sweat.

What's the fastest, simplest, and most foolproof way to lead people?

Pick up your backpack.

Say "hey y'all, follow me."

Start walking.

At any given time, we're at risk to let the skills that we developed as individual practicioners atrophy from misuse. The state of the art evolves and leaves us behind. Asset Libraries become integrated. Prototyping tools develop new flow models. Figma releases a new form of Autolayout and holy-shit-it's-magic.

But if it's been 3 years since you opened a piece of design software more complicated than Google Slides that magic is probably more like sorcery -- confusing and a little scary.

My current design lead is especially good at this -- he makes a point of developing most of his tools and products in Figma rather than other, more "leadership-appropriate" tools. It keeps him close to the work and improves his ability to relate to, coach, and upskill the designers within our organization.

There's a reason I reach out to him regularly for advice.