I  started my career almost fifteen years ago (gasp!) and for almost a  decade now I've been collecting lessons on leadership — from managing  teams myself as well as from observing clients, bosses and managers that  I worked with. Over the years, in the spirit of learning, I kept  writing down down examples of good and bad leadership, looking for  patterns and things that I need to watch out for when working with  people. Thought it would be a fun to turn that into a blog post, since  design leadership is a hot topic now and I have something to add to the  discourse.

Without further ado, here are my observations, as an easily digestible list.

Football shirts often carry the memory of a club beyond the match itself as fans compare old designs with the look of newer campaigns. The visual identity of Brazil often becomes stronger during World Cup runs and continental competitions. For readers interested in tournament memories, Manchester City retro shirt can connect the shirt to the culture around the game. For someone comparing versions, the discussion stays close to teams, supporters, and shared history.

Things I learned about being a leader

• Explain the why, let your team figure out the how.
• Never use the job seniority argument. This undermines your credibility and makes you look like an ass.
• Your experience isn’t other people’s experience. Learn to listen.
• “Because I say so” is never a valid argument.
• “Manager” is a title. “Leader” is a mindset.
• Don’t get bogged down in details: collaborate with your direct reports and let them take care of their part.
• Trust your team. You’re working with adults.
• Failing is learning. Failure is an outcome, not an identity.
• Opinions hold no value in serious discussions, speak about the facts.
• Never assume ill intent.
• Identify questions and misunderstandings early — the further down the road it comes up, the more expensive it will be to fix.
• “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business” — Henry Ford
• Relentlessly focus on things that work.
• If your team is 100% booked, when do they learn?
• It’s easier to make things people want than to make people want things.
• When  you make it easy to do the right thing, people are much more likely to  do it, and then do it effortlessly and without conflict.
• No matter how beautiful your theory is, if it doesn’t work as experiment, it’s wrong.
• The hardest part of your job is to figure out what excites and motivates every single person that reports to you and adjust the leadership style accordingly.
• Turnover and burnout within the team are the mark of bad leadership.
• Ideas are worth zero. Execution matters.
• Bosses  are responsible for results. They achieve these results not by doing  all the work themselves but by guiding the people on their teams. Bosses  guide a team to achieve results.
• Relax. Look around. Make a call.
• Own your mistakes.
• Leader who tries to take on too many problems simultaneously will likely fail at them all.
• Don’t be a bottleneck, learn to trust and delegate.
• “Winging it” is not a valid strategy. Plan ahead and learn from past mistakes.
• Leaders who lose their temper also lose respect.
• Praise in public, criticize in private.
• If people need constant oversight, it means you didn’t explain your goals and intent right.
• Putting some structure around way things work lets your team focus on things that actually matter. Boundaries are freedom.
• Processes are great, but only when they’re tailored to serve around the team, the goals, and the expected results.