These are ideas I’ve learned that made me a better leader.
Build trust through consistency
Trust is the foundation of a strong organization, and consistency is what builds trust.
Early in my startup, I struggled with consistency. When a team can’t rely on you to show up predictably, their trust in you erodes and it slows everything down.
Stephen Covey’s Speed of Trust reinforces this lesson: organizations with high trust get things done far more efficiently. A simple illustration: if your mom asks to stay in your spare bedroom for a weekend, you likely say yes without hesitation. But if a stranger asked the same, you’d need references, contracts, and deposits. High trust organizations move faster.
When I led DI (Design Interactive), the student-run design agency at UC Davis, I kept a simple reminder on my wall: “Engender trust every day.” At every meeting and one-on-one, I reflected on whether my actions and words were reinforcing trust.
Experiment whenever there is uncertainty
This seems obvious nowadays, but we really tested everything.
We experimented with multiple names and visual identities to see which one students would most readily recognize as a UX design organization working with real clients, and which would encourage event attendance. Design Interactive wasn’t our first choice, but it proved most effective in communicating our mission. Similarly, the visual identity I crafted proved too high-brow to connect with students, so we opted for a friendlier, more approachable design.
We also applied the same testing mindset to events and marketing. Every event included a survey to track how attendees discovered us, helping us evaluate marketing effectiveness. We measured conversion rates from public events to member applications to ensure we maintained both reach and selectivity over time. And we tracked whether designers returned to take on mentorship roles, reinforcing a culture of giving back.
Clairfy decision rights
I first came across this idea during my product design internship at Alation, when investor Gokul Rajaram spoke at a fireside chat. He introduced the phrase “decision rights,” and it immediately clarified a common source of team conflict for me.
When decision rights aren’t clear, teams can get stuck. Decisions bounce endlessly between functions (say, product and marketing, or a designer and a PM), or they never get made despite multiple meetings.
So the next time you notice decisions dragging on or circling back without resolution, pause and ask: Is it clear who holds the decision rights here? More often than not, the answer is no.
Apply situational leadership
This comes from one of my favorite business books, Leadership and the One Minute Manager: A Situational Approach to Leading Others by Ken Blanchard.
The main point is that leadership isn’t one-size-fits-all. You need to diagnose your report’s level of competence for the task at hand.
Are they:
D1: an enthusiastic beginner (low competence + high commitment)
D2: a disillusioned learner (low to some competence + low commitment)
D3: capable but cautious (moderate to high competence + variable commitment)
D4: a self-reliant achiever (high competence + high commitment)
It differs not just from person to person, but also from task to task.
Then you have various leadership styles:
Style 1: Directing (high directive + low supportive behavior)
The leader provides specific directions and closely monitors performance to give feedback.
In directing, you tell the person what the goal is and what a good job looks like, and you give them a step-by-step plan about how to accomplish the task. You solve the problem and make most of the decisions, providing feedback and relying on the person's willingness to learn and their transferable skills.
Style 2: Coaching (high directive + high supportive behavior)
The leader continues to direct task accomplishment but also encourages involvement in decision-making.
In coaching, you begin to engage in two-way communication, though the leader still makes the final decision.
Style 3: Supporting (low directive + high supportive behavior)
The leader and individual make decisions together; the leader's role is to facilitate, listen, draw out, and encourage.
In supporting, you would rarely talk about how a person should solve a particular problem but you ask questions that expand their thinking and help them build confidence by finding their own solutions.
Style 4: Delegating (low directive + low supportive behavior)
The individual makes most of the decisions and gets support from themselves or colleagues; the leader's role is to value the individual's contributions.
In directing, you are handing over responsibility of day-to-day decision-making.
Effective leadership means growing your team’s competence and confidence so you can gradually adopt lighter-touch management approaches.
Here are some examples of how I applied situational leadership while leading DI.
One team member was an exceptional communicator and naturally inspiring, so I entrusted her with managing our largest client, Grubhub. I observed that she was D3 in this task, capable but cautious, so I took a supporting leadership style (Style 3). She was highly capable, but since the role was new to her, I made sure to be there in a supportive role, providing resources and encouragement whenever she needed it. She was instrumental in managing the client's expectations and led the team to deliver an effective solution.
Another person I worked with was leading marketing for DI and proposed some social media ideas. I observed that she was a D2 in this, a disillusioned learner, so I worked with her closely in a coaching leadership style (Style 2) to both show her how we've approached social media historically and to let her gradually make more of the decisions.
Since situational leadership grows out of servant leadership, a valuable reflection is whether your team would say they feel well-served by you.
Culture is a pattern of behavior that’s rewarded or punished
Culture isn’t defined by what a company says it values, but by what it actually rewards and punishes.
For instance, a company may claim to value risk-taking, but if it consistently shuts down new ideas and rewards only incremental improvements, the true culture is risk-averse.
At DI, I applied this principle intentionally. I recognized and rewarded team members who openly shared non-consensus ideas in meetings or who went out of their way to support the welfare of their peers or clients. These rewards were informal—shout-outs in meetings or private words of praise—but even small gestures helped build a culture of high standards and reduced groupthink.
I also introduced large weekly meetings with a one-breath ritual, a practice of presence that fostered authenticity across the team.
Make it personal
Effective leadership is personal. I made myself available to my reports—whether for their projects at DI, job searches, or classwork—so they knew I was there to guide and support them.
At the same time, I let each person set their own weekly goals, with me serving as the enforcer. This approach made expectations clear: my team felt supported, but they also understood they were accountable for following through.
Leaders can show care and maintain accountability simultaneously.
Give people space to fail
One common leadership pitfall is not trusting your team enough to delegate, often driven by a desire to prevent mistakes. I experienced this firsthand when running my first startup.
I corrected this approach at DI. Even when a report proposed an idea I doubted, I often let them experiment, especially if they were new to the task. Allowing trial and error fosters long-term agency and growth, even if it slows things down in the short term.
This approach is the opposite of micromanaging. As Sun Tzu said: “When the best leaders’ work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’”
True leadership creates the conditions for others to succeed independently.