Emerging Patterns: Design Leadership in 2026

Overview

The question

How do designers actually become leaders, and what lets them keep leading as the profession keeps changing?

The research

• 119 design leaders surveyed across 31 topics
• 11 in-depth interviews with leaders across a global range of organizations
• Published as an interactive report with 5 themes and a filterable data-explore view

Final Outcome

Research

Quant

A 31-topic survey, completed by 119 design leaders.

Headline findings

<30%

studied in a dedicated design program

1 in 5

had no formal design education

21%

had a strong early-career mentor

41%

had no mentor at all

94%

expect their tool stack to change dramatically in the next 5 years

49.5%

plan to stay on their current career trajectory over the next 5 years

Qual

• 11 recorded interviews, chosen for range across organizations, geographies, and career stages
• Surfaced the “why” behind the stats, and language that became organizing ideas for the report (e.g., “portfolio career,” the missing “ladder”)

Service Design Blueprint for the Interview Process

The problem

11 interviews, 10 team members. How do you keep the process consistent without flattening the depth that makes interviews valuable?

The approach

A service blueprint mapping both sides of the process:

• Front-stage (interviewee): invitation → scheduling → pre-interview framing → interview → follow-up
• Back-stage (team): discussion guide development → interviewer prep → recording/transcription → handoff to synthesis

Insight Synthesis

Method

Affinity mapping and thematic analysis, looking for where quantitative insights aligned with or contradicted qualitative remarks.

Summer Writing Process

Research wrapped by the end of the semester, but writing and publishing happened over the summer in collaboration with Doug Powell and Andrew Pandji.

Key decisions over the summer

• Narrowing to 5 themes
• Selecting quotes that best represent our thesis
• Building the interactive data view, combining the quantitative data visualization with the narrative style of the interview quotes
• Editorial critique with Doug Powell, which brought the narrative and tone together to represent our research appropriately