Thrown Into Management: Lessons Learned Leading Thumbtack's Design Team - Bridge

VP of Design decided to leave, and I suddenly found myself in charge of leading the design team. On top of that, I became responsible for tripling its headcount by the end of the following year.

Over the next 14 months, my team would grow from 5 to 18, from single-discipline to multi-discipline, and from flat to stacked. But with just six weeks at Thumbtack behind me, I had no idea how I was going to get through that next year.

I learned many lessons, but two stand out as the most important ones that helped me and the team get unstuck and get moving: build trust (quickly) and keep the team engaged once that trust is in place.