The Intentional Design Leadership Circle
A 6-week salon for Director-plus design and user experience leaders
Design leadership has always been demanding and lonely, but emerging technologies have driven even greater anxiety in the face of existential uncertainty. Many leaders feel pulled in every direction...
To address this challenge, Peter Merholz and Jesse James Garrett — hosts of the Finding Our Way podcast — now offer The Intentional Design Leadership Circle, a weekly gathering for design leaders who are ready to move beyond surface-level frameworks and wrestle with the real challenges of leading with purpose during turbulent times.
Most design leaders are too deep in the work to see it clearly. Intentionality is what separates those who endure from those who transform. We created this circle so design leaders can step back, gain perspective, and lead from a place of clarity and purpose — rather than exhaustion and reaction.
Drawing upon Peter's extensive work with design organizations and Jesse's deep leadership practice, each session provides a space where peers can speak honestly about what's working, what isn't, and what feels impossible, and support one another with wisdom, tools, or just sympathy.
Over six sessions, we'll work through the full arc of intentional design leadership:
- developing a clear-eyed understanding of your organizational context
- articulating a sharp leadership agenda
- building trust and relational power
- setting your team up for success
- managing change (or even transformation!)
- maintaining resilience and equanimity throughout
Upon the Circle's conclusion, you won't just leave with ideas — you'll leave with concrete strategies for reshaping how design is understood, valued, and practiced in your organization, and connections with fellow travelers who can help one another on their respective journeys.
SESSION STRUCTURE
The Circle is limited to 20 participants to ensure active engagement for all. For each 90-minute session, Peter and Jesse provide lightweight agenda-setting and then active facilitation. We'll use a combination of Zoom and Miro to encourage collaboration. Peter will likely pull up material from slide decks or articles to augment our discussions. Everyone will have access to a Discord server to keep the conversation going between sessions.
Most design leaders are too deep in the work to see it clearly. Intentionality is what separates those who endure from those who transform. We created this circle so design leaders can step back, gain perspective, and lead from a place of clarity and purpose — rather than exhaustion and reaction.
Drawing upon Peter's extensive work with design organizations and Jesse's deep leadership practice, each session provides a space where peers can speak honestly about what's working, what isn't, and what feels impossible, and support one another with wisdom, tools, or just sympathy.
Over six sessions, we'll work through the full arc of intentional design leadership:
- developing a clear-eyed understanding of your organizational context
- articulating a sharp leadership agenda
- building trust and relational power
- setting your team up for success
- managing change (or even transformation!)
- maintaining resilience and equanimity throughout
Upon the Circle's conclusion, you won't just leave with ideas — you'll leave with concrete strategies for reshaping how design is understood, valued, and practiced in your organization, and connections with fellow travelers who can help one another on their respective journeys.
SESSION STRUCTURE
The Circle is limited to 20 participants to ensure active engagement for all. For each 90-minute session, Peter and Jesse provide lightweight agenda-setting and then active facilitation. We'll use a combination of Zoom and Miro to encourage collaboration. Peter will likely pull up material from slide decks or articles to augment our discussions. Everyone will have access to a Discord server to keep the conversation going between sessions.
Limited to 20 seats.
pricing
$899–Corporate rate
(your company pays)
$699–Personal rate
(you're paying yourself)
(your company pays)
$699–Personal rate
(you're paying yourself)
Location
The Circle takes place on Zoom and uses Miro
Date & Time
Dates
15 April 2026
22 April 2026
29 April 2026
6 May 2026
(No session 13 May)
20 May 2026
27 May 2026
Time
All sessions are 90 minutes, starting at:
8:00am Pacific /
11:00am Eastern /
4:00pm UK /
17.00 CET
15 April 2026
22 April 2026
29 April 2026
6 May 2026
(No session 13 May)
20 May 2026
27 May 2026
Time
All sessions are 90 minutes, starting at:
8:00am Pacific /
11:00am Eastern /
4:00pm UK /
17.00 CET
QUESTIONS?
Agenda By Week
15 April 2026
Understanding Organizational Context
The first step in effective leadership is to achieve clarity about the context in which you're operating.
We'll discuss strategies for understanding the mechanics of your business, stakeholders and their motivations, what people expect from your team, and how to articulate a clear definition and purpose for UX and Design.
We'll discuss strategies for understanding the mechanics of your business, stakeholders and their motivations, what people expect from your team, and how to articulate a clear definition and purpose for UX and Design.
22 April 2026
Articulating an Agenda and Point of View
Effective design leaders don't just respond to their organizations — they shape them. In this session we'll discuss how to define the change you're seeking, build a clear leadership agenda around it, and develop the point of view that will anchor everything you do.
29 April 2026
Building Relationships and Trust
Leadership at the organizational level runs on relational power, not positional authority. Together, we'll examine the dynamics of trust — how it's built, lost, and leveraged — and explore strategies for cultivating cross-functional relationships and external alliances.
6 May 2026
Setting Your Team up for Success
Your team's ability to deliver is inseparable from your ability to lead them well. Here we focus on creating the conditions for high performance: establishing psychological safety, setting clear expectations, and following through on the commitments that build a culture of trust from the inside out.
13 May 2026
Break
There is no session this week.
20 May 2026
Creating Change
Good intentions don't transform organizations — it takes deliberate action. We'll discuss how to identify the right opportunities for change, cultivate suitable partners, build the proof points that earn organizational confidence, and use communications strategically to sustain momentum.
27 May 2026
Seeing It Through
The hardest part of organizational change isn't starting — it's persisting. In our final session we'll get honest about the political realities of design leadership, the resilience required to navigate setbacks, and what it actually looks like to move your organization toward being genuinely human-centered and design-led.
