Design Needs Design Leadership

Not just a reporting line. Not a borrowed seat at someone else’s table.

Let me say it clearly: Design should not report up through engineering. Or marketing. Or sales. Or…?

If a company is truly serious about design, and I mean actually serious, not just slapping some “design thinking” slides into their pitch deck, then design needs its own leadership. Someone who understands the work, the craft, and the cost of not getting it right.

The Problem is Reporting to the Wrong Leader

I’ve seen it too many times: design reports up to someone who has never done the job. A head of engineering. A marketing VP. A “professional exec” who’s never spent a single day in the trenches.

They may be great at what they do. But they don’t know what we do. And when it comes to protecting the integrity of the product experience, that gap is massive.

Here’s what usually happens

A company grows fast, prioritizes shipping, hires engineers first, then product. Eventually, someone realizes things look off, or worse, feel off. Users are confused. Conversion drops. Friction creeps in. Suddenly, “We need a designer.”

So they hire one. Maybe two. Maybe a small team. But they report into engineering. Or marketing. Or worse, a generalist leader with no real understanding of product design.

Now you’ve got a design team with nowhere to go.

• They’re raising UX issues to someone who doesn’t understand the terms.

• They’re advocating for users to someone who only sees feature velocity.

• They’re trying to fix foundational problems, but their roadmap is dictated by folks with different goals.

And when something goes wrong, when user adoption lags or feedback turns negative, guess who gets blamed? Design.

I’ve seen it more than once. I’ve lived it.

So have most experienced designers. We’ve been the ones shouting about a usability issue for weeks, only to be ignored, then blamed later when it hits a customer.

With the wrong leader there is no effective escalation path. There is no fighter, no real advocate.

And we’ve watched other departments make decisions that directly undermine UX, because they simply didn’t know any better.

It’s not personal. It’s structural. And it’s fixable.

Design needs design leadership. Real leadership. The kind that’s earned through experience, not job titles.

Someone who’s been in the trenches. Who understands design systems, research, accessibility, interaction patterns, and the nuance of stakeholder wrangling. Someone who knows how to speak business and user.

Design leadership that can translate between departments.
That can build influence without begging for it.
That can protect the team’s focus while raising the organization’s design maturity.

Because let’s be honest: when design is led well, product outcomes are better.

When the design doesn’t work, we all feel it — users most of all.

So if you’re serious about design, give it what it needs to succeed.
Don’t make it report into a function that doesn’t understand it.
Don’t make designers fight uphill for every basic ask.
Don’t sideline UX and expect world-class product outcomes.

Great design doesn’t happen by accident.
And it doesn’t survive bad org charts.

Design needs design leadership. Full stop.