Adaptive Thinking for Design Leadership. Coaching adaptive capabilities to empower next visionary leaders

Several literatures have shown the necessity to envision design leadership as a strategy for the future of “advanced design” (Mozota, 2006), to anticipate the role of the designer as an “interpreter” who assumes an advocacy role (Buccolo et al., 2012) and to draft and promote design leadership as a competency at undergraduate and graduate levels (Baars & Rüedi, 2016) in order to draft and test new coaching strategies that will acknowledge the emergence of leadership in design. We argue that the first steps towards developing design thinking for leadership are: firstly to understand the difference between “training” and “coaching” in design education, secondly acknowledging the responsibilities implied by the leadership role, and thirdly understanding design leadership as a capability that develops in time and so requires an initial level of design expertise. To clarify this assumption we present the different levels of expertise in design, and point out to the gradual changes of the mental states that lead to the achievement of a visionary level. We further argue that in order to prepare expert designers to discover and achieve master and visionary capabilities (Dreyfuss, 2003), it is necessary to implement tailor-made coaching strategies. Starting from this assumption we first present the literature review focusing on the design leaders’ responsibilities (Muenjohn, et al., 2013) introduce the different levels of the organizational context (Cooksey, 2003), outline the importance of uncertainty as a way to induce change in an organizational system, (Hammonds, 2002), and explain the leading and learning framework as an example of strategic approach for design leadership. In this context we explain the mutated role of the design educator from instructor, or teacher who “delivers” an educational content to the students, to coach, or mentor who constructs the learning process by empowering the expert designers to make the most of their own leadership capabilities acquired through training, practiced skills and personal experience. In conclusion we show that future thinking for design leadership has to take into consideration three factors: 1. leadership thinking is not necessary accessible for all expert designers, 2. although the practical and professional skills are a necessary ingredient, design leadership thinking capabilities are mainly activated by the dedication to an on going learning and leading process, 3. this implies facing the uncertainty of the organizational systems, anticipating and inducing rather than reacting to, change opportunities.