Supporting leaders that report to you

I’ve been a director in video games for a few years now. I have had my share of “learning opportunities” along the way (this is code for: I have made mistakes). In recent years I’ve found that one of my hardest struggles is supporting people who have to become leaders to succeed in their jobs.

It’s honestly much easier to lead a group of people directly. You get to collaborate with them, work together and establish rapport, tackle creative challenges together, and bring your creative vision directly to the people who will implement and build.

When I was a Level Design director I was most effective when I was sitting with each designer and playing their levels with them, calling out feedback and discussing next steps. It’s still one of my favorite things to do.

Much more difficult: teach someone to do all that creative leadership and set them up to be successful, while still providing high level guidance and standards. It’s a minefield of unclear expectations, so today I’m writing about teaching and working with game dev leads.

Everyone has a different idea of what a lead job is

You want total clarity of expectation on what you expect your lead to do, and you are competing with their past experiences, their dreams, and what other teammates think the lead should do.

For example: I have met level design team leads who felt strongly that their job existed purely as a kind of “morale…