Managing Up for Designers: Employ Your Empathy to Influence Leaders
Make sure your work is valued by framing it in ways leadership cares about.
You’ve been there. You spend weeks crafting a thoughtful, well-researched design solution, only to present it and have leadership glaze over or nitpick details instead of recognizing the potential impact.
You expected enthusiasm. Instead, you got indifference. The hard truth is that waiting for leadership to “get” design isn’t a strategy. If you want influence, you have to manage up.
And that doesn’t mean playing politics or flattering executives over coffee. It means making your work impossible to ignore by speaking their language, aligning with their priorities, and framing your contributions in ways that actually matter to them.
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What Managing Up Really Means (and What It’s Not)
Managing up is not about playing office politics or self-promotion. And it’s definitely not about throwing in random KPIs just to sound “business-minded.” It’s about making sure your work is seen, valued, and understood by framing it in ways leadership cares about.
That means:
Communicating the business impact of your work, not just the UX theory behind it.
Understanding leadership’s priorities and aligning design efforts accordingly.
Building credibility so your voice carries weight when it matters.
Designers often assume that great work speaks for itself. It doesn’t. Great work needs a strong advocate, and that’s you.
If you want a seat at the table, show them why design belongs there.
Why Leadership Doesn’t See What You See
Executives and designers often think differently. Leadership is focused on revenue, cost, scalability, and risk. Designers are focused on usability, accessibility, and interaction patterns. Neither is wrong, but if you’re speaking in design systems while they’re thinking in revenue, you’re missing each other completely.
Instead of saying: This design is more intuitive for users.
Try: We believe this update will reduce support tickets by 20%, cutting down on customer service costs.
Or instead of: This new layout improves readability.
Try: Clearer content structure means users find what they need faster, reducing drop-offs and increasing conversions.
Good design impacts business. You just have to connect the dots for them.
How to Align Design With Leadership Priorities
I once helped create a presentation for executives focused on creating great experiences by understanding and satisfying user needs, getting to the what and the how by starting with the why. But I failed to connect user-focused strategy to how they would sell it to customers and how it would contribute to revenue growth. It was a grand (and over-rehearsed) vision that left them asking “ok sure, now what?”
This is a classic mistake—designers focus on making experiences better, but leadership is looking at the bigger business picture.
A few months later we built a new presentation that was aimed at the same goals but started at the end — using case studies that tied our activities to real results for clients and incremental revenue for the agency. There was immediate excitement and LFG energy across the sales and executive teams because we focused on the impact to the audience in the room. The why, what and how would come later, and for different groups like adjacent disciplines, project and resource management and finance.
Ways to ensure your design work aligns with leadership goals:
Start with the business objectives. Ask: What’s the single most important outcome — for this audience — this initiative needs to drive?
Tie every design choice back to business impact. Whether it’s increasing conversions, reducing churn, or improving efficiency, make the connection clear.
Be proactive about measurement. Establish a baseline, then track and report the impact of your design, even if no one asks for it.
When leadership sees design as a business driver, not just a visual layer, your influence grows. Before long people will start to see you as bigger than your title.
Make Your Work Visible Without Self-Promotion
If no one knows the impact of your work, it’s easier for them to overlook you. But this isn’t about bragging. It’s about keeping leadership informed in a way that’s useful. Make impact a natural part of your conversations.
Instead of: We redesigned the checkout flow.
Try: Since launching the new checkout flow, conversions are up 15%. Great collaboration between design and dev.
It’s not about self-promotion—it’s about results.
Other ways to ensure visibility without feeling self-serving:
Create a stakeholder map to identify various stakeholders and decide what level of information they will need as you move forward.
Regularly update stakeholders. A quick Slack message or email summarizing the measurable results of your work keeps leadership in the loop.
Offer insights, not just status updates. Instead of saying “The new feature is live”, say “Early data shows a 12 percent increase in engagement”.
Acknowledge contributions from others. It reinforces your leadership without making it all about you.
Handling Pushback Without Losing Ground
Leadership will push back on design decisions. Some suggestions will be valuable, others will be frustrating.
You have two choices:
Dig in defensively and start a power struggle.
Use strategic framing to turn the conversation in a productive direction.
A few tactics to keep in mind:
Use “Yes, and…” instead of “Yes, but…”
Keeps discussions collaborative instead of confrontational.
Example: Yes, and if we phase this rollout, we can minimize risk while still improving usability.
Ask questions instead of shutting down suggestions.
Example: What’s the main concern driving that suggestion?
This uncovers the real issue so you can address it without dismissing their input.
Frame pushback as a business tradeoff.
Example: We can cut this feature, but it may increase customer service costs. Should we dig into the tradeoffs before making a call?
Great designers don’t just defend their work—they navigate conversations strategically.
Quick Do’s and Don’ts of Managing Up
✅ Do:
Proactively communicate the impact of your work.
Align your design work with leadership’s biggest priorities.
Speak in terms of revenue, retention, and efficiency.
Make data-driven cases when advocating for design decisions.
🚫 Don’t:
Assume executives naturally appreciate the value of design.
Overwhelm with design jargon that doesn’t tie to business goals.
Mistake silence for approval — if leadership isn’t engaged, reframe your approach.
Treat managing up as a one-time effort — it’s an ongoing process.
Take Control — Managing Up Isn’t Optional
If you’re waiting for leadership to naturally start valuing design, you’ll be waiting a long time.
Most executives won’t instinctively “get” design, but they understand business outcomes. If you want a seat at the table, show them why design belongs there.
Designers don’t just earn influence by being good at design. They earn it by making their work impossible to ignore.
Take One Step
For one project you’re working on:
Identify the core business goal it supports
Adjust how you talk about that work to leadership.
See how it changes the response you get.
Managing up isn’t about playing politics. It’s about making sure your work gets the attention it deserves.
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I write weekly articles for designers and design leaders who want to grow their impact, lead with clarity, and build careers that actually feel sustainable.