Attending this course and passing the exam earns 1 UX Certification credit, which also counts towards the optional UX Management Specialty.
Learn more about NN/g's UX Certification Program.
Learn and apply practical leadership skills to your UX role, regardless of job title
This course is for anyone who is already leading or aspires to take on the responsibility of leading the user experience aspect of a project or product. People with “UX Lead” or “UX Manager” in their job title will benefit from this course, as will people who are at a career stage where such a title is their next step.
Regardless of title or role, you’ll leave with practical skills that will prepare you for being a UX leader on your team.
The basis of the course is a lecture format with group exercises to reinforce the learned principles and guidelines.
The course also includes:
Our Being a UX Leader course focuses on practical UX leadership skills, not management practices. Therefore, we do not discuss managing people, UX budgets, team structure, career progression pathways, or tool mastery in this course.
A related NN/g course, DesignOps: Scaling UX Design and Research, focuses on scaling UX, including creating design team structures, growing UX teams, hiring the right roles, sharing UX knowledge, balancing workload, and education/enablement outside of the UX team.
Another related NN/g course, Leading Highly Effective UX Teams, covers team roles, team development, justifying UX budget and aligning the UX team within the greater company culture.
Finally, The One-Person UX Team course covers how to be effective when you are a team of just one UX person, which often means needing to lead others.
Attending this course and passing the exam earns 1 UX Certification credit, which also counts towards the optional UX Management Specialty.
Learn more about NN/g's UX Certification Program.
"Great course, I got a lot of practical tools to take back and apply in my day-to-day work. I'm excited to try out some of the techniques."
S De Vries, Twill, Netherlands
"Excellent presenter who shares a strong framework for what it means to be a UX leader (at any level) and offers you practical tips, processes and guidelines to achieve it in an engaging format."
Bryn Williams, Capital One
"There's a lot out there about "evangelizing" UX, but not as much about working through the roles and challenges that come with it. This course covers it! Easy to follow and very informative."
Andrew Carney, Booz Allen Hamilton
"This course is ideal for people looking for a framework on which to understand how to implement UX Leadership."
Maurice Sy
More Participant Comments
"It's a great overview for leadership in any sector and provides invaluable info I can, and will put to use at my organization. It's invigorating."
Graham MacDougall
"This is a great course for anyone considering taking on more of a leadership role in UX. It's not required that you have a desire to go into management. It's simply about growing as a UX professional. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone in the UX field."
Courtney Miller, PPG, Pittsburgh, USA
"Do it. This is the twelfth course I've taken with NN/g, and it helped me to feel more confident about taking the initiative to be the one to introduce UX methods and processes into our organization."
Crystal Cary, Frazer Computing, Inc., Canton, NY USA
"I really did enjoy this course - there was so much useful, practical information. That's exactly what I was hoping for. I'm taking a lot of video courses - like LinkedIn etc - with are great for kind of hard skills, learning particular software or some aspects of coding. But in here you get a lot of what's missing on those pre-recorded classes - real world, inside industry, sometimes-behind-the-scene kind of insights."
Bart Nowak, BartNowak.com, London, UK
"Worth doing, good instructors practical info, good workshops."
Neil Gardiner, gohenry, London
"Very useful, engaging, empowering and motivating class. It had lots of very interesting activities which helped to keep me engaged through out the class, and kept the momentum for the class. Learnt lots of UX leadership skills, feedback and communication with stakeholders tactics, plan to apply it at my work."
Shilpa Misra, Metro Markets, Germany
"I would tell them that it is good for anyone in UX, not just UX managers or people in UX with titles that signal some kind of leadership role. I benefited from the course because it made me think about how I personally approach situations that call for UX leadership, and it made me think about areas I could improve on."
Laura Egan, Pittsburgh, PA
"This course was so incredibly insightful! As a one-person UX "department" the topics outlined in this course gave great information on how to be effective and provided stratgies on how to lead teams (even if they're not UX practioners)."
Amy Vaccarello, DSS Inc, North Palm Beach
"Absolutely, the teacher showed some valuable real cases that helped understand better the concepts illustrated. I'll definitely suggest this course to other colleagues."
Andrea Baldo, Accenture, UK
"This class has great information on framing UX value, communicating UX impact, presenting research and design, and so much more. Definitely recommend!"
Stephy Hogan, Presentation Guild, Severn, USA
"Exactly what all ux leaders need to know."
Caroline Ahlmen, Tele2, Stockholm Sweden
"Awesome course! It especially was a eyeopener on preparing for meetings and preparing for your audience in those meetings. It was also great to look in to receiving feedback."
Robbert Schuller, Waternet, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
"The UX Leader course distills a great deal of knowledge about effective leadership, brings depth by reference to real-world examples, and ties it to practical approaches and techniques that an be adopted and applied immediately."
Sean Romer, Perficient, Inc., Orlando, United States
"Rachel is great, interesting topic presented really well with added humor making it light at the same time. This has given me a lot of info to digest and a huge amount of value to take home."
Jason Schrier, LIC
"All throughout, I thought of several cases at work on my projects where I can apply these principles. I cant wait to share all this info with my UX team."
Quito Banogon
"Anna's experience really shines with real world examples. Great to learn from someone who has seen common pitfalls we can avoid and provide processes that really work."
Todd Alexander
"The course is fully recommended for capturing a better language, posture and positioning regarding results, concept and UX professional. I work in a big and commerative company in Brazil and this class has opened my mind to the challenges I have failed and how to address future actions regarding the UX concept."
Patricia Oliveria, Bradesro
"I liked that this workshop wasn't just theory, there was alot of tangible tools/methods I can actually implement in my role that the exercises helped to reinforce."
Christine Ou, AudienceView
"This course is a great introduction to the factors that make a great UX leader, with practical frameworks and exercises to help shift your thinking from management to leadership. Rachel's presentation delivery was outstanding, and she made the course engaging and fun!"
Sophie Keren, Department for International Trade, London, UK
"This was really a masterclass, Kate was very well prepared, the presentation was well structured and I will definitely use some tips."
Bob, MSD
"I loved the tips she gives on specific tools ad I am definitely going to use them as part of my day to day job."
Valeria Loera, Rotoplas
"The knowledge of this course will help me to be a good UX leader with empathy not only with users, but also with stakeholders."
Angeles Lara, Arca Continental
"I'd like to recommend to anyone who wants to address themselves as a leader/communicator on behalf of your task/team."
Sheng-hui Hsu, Capital on Tap, UK
"Very relevant and extremely inspiring. I have lots of take aways and insights, which I plan to implement in my everyday work."
Michal Otenburg, Carson Wagonlit Travel
"Anna kept things lively and moved the course along very well. She had a way of making the subject matter extremely relevant to the things I'm dealing with at work."
Matt Winick
"Being a leader is about people. The course is a masterclass about how to deal with people."
Leandro, booking.com
"This course I feel like was everything that I needed, as a designer who has been looking to level up her skills, but hasn't quite had a mentor available at the workplace. There are many frameworks I can walk away with so that I know now what I don't know about where I can grow as a leader."
Jessica Acerer, Learning Equality
"Very inspiring. I can't wait to use these new skills and strategies in my work place. Anna Kaley was a captivating and engaging presenter."
Brian Oei
"I highly recommend this course because it gave me a good mindset and structured process to manage and work in UX. I'm keen to start applying some of these insights to any work. I know that UX could be disruptive inside an organization but the challenge is definitely exciting."
Ilara Recami, Pocomo
"Learned some techniques that are really useful. Also good vision of where I'm standing and what I can improve."
Maurice
"This course was fantastic. With almost every point Kara made I was able to think about how to apply it to my work position."
Katherine Banks, Morgan Stanley, New York
"I loved the breakdown on the UX Leader archetypes. Kara gave great techniques to be more effective in each type of UX leadership style. Very applicable."
"This course should be required as a UX practitioner. It tells you how to move your ideas and proposals forward, outside of the UX bubble."
Vanessa Colina
"I found Anna to be fantastically smart, engaging and informative Her presentation style is compelling, relative, timely, relatable and concise. Simply brilliant. She should 1000% be the model example and spokesperson for NN/g! Great value!"
Ezra Masters
"Great practical application of knowledge, and pacing of the presentation."
Rafal Borkowski, UXOX.PL
"It empowered me, reminded of useful tools, and provided me with a plan to start with."
Fernanda Dias, SAP SE
"Really insightful course that covered leadership skills in general and then relating these to UX."
Sian King, triptease
"Kara was well spoken and brimming with knowledge. This is by far the most beneficial course I've taken here so far."
Shaina Antila, Collegis Education
"Great content and delivery — I'm definitely going to need to review and make a plan for implementing this stuff. Got me excited again about the things I love about UX."
Conan Heiselt, TechSmith
"Great course. Was very interested in learning more about showing business value, measuring outcomes, and speaking the language of stakeholders."
Tina Bizaca, MacMillan Learning
"Kate made the course a mix of listening and practicing, which gives more feeling of being able to apply the knowledge."
Iryna Fruhman, Amway, Munich Germany
"Provides a solid framework in approaching leadership challenges."
Julia, MR HealthTeach
"It opened my mind on how to measure the UX impact in more dept and new ways I haven't thought of."
Samuel Bauer, Switzerland
"Gives practical solutions to tackle difficult discussions you might have with stakeholders. It has empowered me to dive in to the discussion than to avoid them."
Lotte Bijl, Online Department, Rotterdam Netherlands
"If you are thinking about becoming a UX leader this is a great course that informs you about the soft skills that can help you become a better UX leader."
Lindonar Jon-Ming, Online Department, Rotterdam Netherlands
"This course has given me a roadmap to guide my company toward a unified vision for what we want our UX to be."
Amber Asaro, eClinicalWorks
"Being an experiential learner, I enjoyed the team work activities done throughout the day and got to pick the brains of people from different industries & backgrounds. Anna was very generous with her knowledge and succinct in her communication. Easy to digest."
Desiree Seow, Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore
"The course provided insight into several frameworks that will assist and equip UX practitioners to be successful at pitching, clarifying thought for UX exec presentations and reinforce how to be a good UX leader."
Liane Ghosh, Dell Technology, Bangalore, India
"I really enjoyed this session. The content framing set the expectation right. I believe the framework will really help in enabling one to be a better leader for the team. Thanks."
Joel, GovTech Singapore
"Definitely a course to go to if you've a UX designer who's looking to broaden your UX management skill in all aspects."
Shawn Ee, KPMG, Singapore
"Go for this course if you are looking for ways to grow as a UX professional. This section helped me evaluate my strengths as a UX leader (I'm a UX team of 1) and gave me a clear idea of what I can start doing when I get back to work."
Catherine Francis, Ground Labs, Singapore
"Love the flow for this class. Perfect mixture of theory and activity. Great job!"
Isa Sofian, Alliance Bank, KL, Malaysia
"Using case study for team role play really enrich our learning experience by walking us through the whole process and the concept is empowering. Really appreciate the great effort put into the training material to provide us such a great insight how being a UX leader should navigate through our daily tasks and responsibilities. Will definitely put the skills into practice."
Jennifer Laurette, 360 Degree Digital, Singapore
"This was INCREDIBLY timely. So many valuable insights I feel confident I can incorporate with my team as needs arise — and as we grow!"
Brennen Schmidt, Deloitte
"This was a fantastic course that far exceeded my expectations. I would recommend it to anyone who has a role in supporting UX in their organization. Kara is so engaging, knowledgeable and inspiring!"
Chelsey Schaffel, zu.com Communications
"Not only a great course on being a UX Leader, but also transferable to many leadership roles."
Nathan Hogman, Ocean Networks Canada
"The course was informative, interactive and dynamic. Thank you!"
Rita Feldman, College of American Pathologists
"This course was outstanding in that it provided several opportunities to apply what I learned in class."
Rachel Finch, Intel
"I loved all the interactive sessions! I also loved Rachel's presentation style."
Serene Mireles, GE Healthcare
"Rachel was amazing! Her course brought an entire table of strangers into an amazing lil design team. The activities were practical, not only helped us learn the material, but our group bonded over them and now use each other as a guide and resource."
Christin Balda
"This workshop provided excellent information & examples for why it's so important that UX Teams and stakeholders find common language so that we're all working towards the same goal."
Cassandra Reid, Northrop Grumman
"Probably one of the best classes I've attended on leadership — not just UX leadership. Takeaways that were immediately viable and straightforward to implement. Would recommend to anyone in a leadership role."
Sean Jones, RFCU
"I liked how it made it easy to recognise which areas I need to improve on and read more about. Now I have a plan of action to become a better UX leader both inside my organisation and as a professional."
Lucia Amado, Dublin, Ireland
"As usual, the course was practical, well researched and delivered flawlessly. Thanks NN/g!"
Christopher Gadd, European Medicines Agency, Amsterdam
"I liked learning about the different areas of UX leadership and reflecting on ways I could improve outside of my area of focus."
Will Leidheiser, State Farm, Atlanta
"Loved the course material, the breakout rooms and the engagement with the speaker and the moderators throughout :)"
Richard Tanner, Atradius, Cardiff
"I really liked to have skills types broke down and with practical examples on how to improve it. Makes easier to create a clear personal plan."
Bibiana De Carli, Booking.com, Amsterdam
"Good base level leadership course with a UX focus. Specifically meant for macro overview of what it means to lead and basics around that, not a tactical overview on performance management or coaching. Rather, it's about guiding, building, and leading s UX strategy."
Jason Chiu, Export Development Canada
"This course enabled me in shaping and defining clear new goals that I could achieve in the upcoming years in my career. The materials provided during this course will be a timeless tool that I could use to personalise my professional and personal growth into becoming a better leader."
Marco Perego, The Netherlands
"I liked how Rachel kept my attention for straight 3-3.30 hours. Normally, that's not possible. I already knew some of the topics but it clicked a puzzle piece when Rachel was explaining how those fit in the bigger picture. Most of the information was new and explained well that after, I didn't even have questions. Well done! Will totally take another course."
Dilan Yuksel, Novozymes, Copenhagen Denmark
"As someone who have been in a leadership position for the same company on the past 3 years, I often feel like my practice might be outdated and I am might be missing something. The NNG training put me on top of my game again and gave me the confidence I needed to be a stronger "UX Evangelist" in my organisation."
Gabriela Braga, Envato, Melbourne, Australia
"Being a UX-leader doesn't necessarily have to be about managing others but to evangelize and spread knowledge about what UX is and how it impacts business value. Great knowledge that more should have. Overall a great course!"
Mari Arnell, Cambio Healthcare Systems, Linköping, Sweden
"One of the best UX courses I've ever taken- the quality of the presentation was very high, and the hands on exercises really helped my understanding of the subject matter."
James Bollington, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
"Great course - Rachel was an excellent speaker and the content worked really well in the remote format. The mix of activities kept you engaged all the way through. Lots of food for thought on my own leadership development and relevant takeaways for my team and wider company."
Sarah Dewar, Crowdhouse, Zurich, Switzerland
"This course was really enjoyable and the content, breakout sessions and tasks helped put learnings to practice. I found it beneficial to understand my leadership strength, how to create a shared vision, validating UX and learning about tactics for responding to feedback."
Helen Hopkins, O2 Telefonica, Reading, UK
"This course is perfect for new leaders or even experienced leaders that can use a more tactile and tangible plan. I really enjoyed the specific examples, group exercises, and tools provided for going forward."
Lane Fielder, Rackspace Technology, San Antonio, TX USA
"Rachel is an excellent presenter with a wealth of knowledge to share in an approachable and appealing manner.
This course has given me fantastic tools, strategies and resources to both prepare for, and use in a leadership role."
Lani Raukawa Field, Signify Ltd, Wellington, Aotearoa. New Zealand
"Anna totally knows what she is talking about, and I highly recommend this course! She covered a lot of great points and amazed me at the speed and quality of her answers to every question from participants (and they weren't easy questions)! She was really wonderful at creating a safe space where people felt comfortable asking questions so they could really learn. :)"
Katrina, Age of Learning, Inc., Glendale, CA, USA
"Anna was masterful at incorporating the chat comments and questions. Really well organized and informative."
Christina Leclerc, Systemscope, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
"This was an amazing course. Thank you Anna. I really got a lot out of it, and I cannot wait to go through the links and suggested readings."
Rebecca Lutomske Mayeaux, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Washington, DC
"I found this course to be very inspirational and there were so many good take-aways that I can start implementing immediately."
Erica McCoy, , Madison, WI USA
"I learned a lot about leadership in design and what that looks like. I learned how to conduct some different workshops and when/how to use leadership skills and in what settings. I would say that this course is great if you are looking to be more of a strategic leader or influencer in design, in your company."
Sarah Khan, Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC
"Demystifies UX leadership role and and activities, and provides highly actionable frameworks that enable UX pros to lead confidently and with empathy."
Damian O'Malley, ServiceNow Inc., San Diego, USA
"Take it if your company doesn't have a fully integrated UX team within the various project and product functions. I did benefit a lot. Liked the whole demeanor and way the instructor left the course. She was very thoughtful and caring about people's questions and specific situations. Seemed like an authority on the subject. The course materials seemed difficult to get to initially. The work settings don't allow for google docs to be used, so I needed to use my personal computer."
Bob Schaffer, AIM Specialty Health, Chicago, IL, USA
"Fantastic speaker - great presence. Content was very aligned with Leadership qualities and themes."
Mike McMurrich, THREE97, Barbados
"Anna is very knowledgeable and knows how to bring her knowledge in a engaging way that appeals both to people new to the field and industry 'veterans' alike. The course is basically a foundational resource for you as a manager to take away valuable tidbits AND to bring back to your team to help them improve basic competences needed as a UX designer. And I continue to be amazed by how well the course facilitators (Anna being a prime example) balance the content of their course with comments and questions from the participants (and in order to do so manage to keep uw with the chat)."
Joren Devocht, Teamleader, Antwerp, Belgium
"As a new Head of UX, this course was really great to re-establish my own strengths as a leader but also assess the strength of the current team in place. The effective communication part in particular helps with the continued journey to help and educate others on the discipline of UX."
Rosalyn, George @ Asda, Leeds
"Great, practical ideas and suggested approaches to many important situations/expectations faced by UX leaders everyday."
Mø Morales, Schneider Electric, Boston, MA, USA
"This course helps you understand the skills needed to be an effective UX leader and how to share them with non-designers stakeholders."
Daniel Peñaloza, Mercado Libre, Bogotá, Colombia
"An excellent grounding in understanding the various ways UX leaders can express differing modes of leadership and how to best support those efforts."
Nathan Cocks, Tundra, Melbourne, Australia
"This course covers a 360° view of what it means to being an effective UX practitioner no matter what your position or title is. It discusses daily challenges UX practitioners face and how to lead these challenges when communicating with peers and stakeholders."
Reem Sabry, Seattle, USA
"The 'being a effective leader' course really delivers the best practice and true human skills needed to inspire change. The best part is these can be learned and developed! This course provides a framework and path to development for those wanting to become better leaders."
Ben Maclaren, Department of Education, Skills and Employment, Australia
"This course really puts into perspective what being a UX leader is and breaks down the myths or perceptions in a way that is very motivational and actionable. It's always been hard for me to concretely understand "leadership" but now I feel like I can go to work on Monday and can make an impact."
Grace Sunnell, New York, USA
"I loved how deep the content was and the tactics focus. Not just concepts, but actual thing to do to improve and reach the goal one takes the course for."
Regalado Montoya, Santiago, Chile
"A lot of content shared in this course isn't always gained through natural experience. It depends on the culture of your company but it's a great way to learn how to apply leadership principles to your everyday life."
Alfredo Deschamps, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Hamden, Connecticut
"I like the course and will suggest if someone asks me how to become UX leader :)"
Yura Yarokhovich, Mobalytics, Minsk, Belarus
"This course provides a good framework of UX leadership. I can definitely relate to the mentioned difficulties designers face when communicating design and the value of UX, and this course provides specific methods and tactics dealing with the problems."
Naomi Z., Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada
"I just can say that I loved it!"
Azita Hosseini Nejad, CJe GmbH, Germany
This course focuses on five essential leadership skills that all UX professionals must master: driving design vision, translating UX into business value, communicating ideas and insights, managing feedback, and evangelizing UX. Get hands-on practice in the skills that will help you create buy-in for UX and bring your team's vision to life.