A studio microphone launching like a rocket through clouds and stars, symbolizing creative voices rising above limits and gatekeeping.

July 2, 2025

The Shape of a Voice

What design thinking really teaches us, and who it leaves out when we forget.

The other day, I came across a post on LinkedIn that stuck with me. It was from a well-known agency figure, commenting on the number of people with few clients “acting like thought leaders.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about it, not because it was outrageous, but because it reflects something deeper about how we assign value to voices in our industry.

That sentence was meant to be a flex. To me, it read like a red flag.

🔍 Let’s Call This What It Is

Smug? Yes.
Elitist? Definitely.
Completely backwards? Absolutely.

In my 15+ years freelancing for agencies, I’ve worked with countless creative directors. Some are brilliant minds and genuine leaders. Others dress like an AI prompt called “Tech Dad Business Casual” and haven’t had an original thought since Flash died.

That’s the part people don’t talk about. Agencies aren’t temples of creativity. More often, they’re factories of “safe.” Safe clients. Safe timelines. Safe, recycled ideas.

The best creativity I’ve seen lately isn’t coming from corner offices. It’s coming from indie devs, underground artists, TikTok animators, and self-taught designers breaking things just to rebuild them better. Some don’t have a single client. But they’ve got vision, and often a bigger impact.

🎨 I Once Worked with a CD…

I once worked with a CD who said, “I don’t really follow design trends. I just go with my gut.” Which would’ve been fine if their gut didn’t look like a 2007 landing page wrapped in dad jeans and an H&M blazer.

They’d wax poetic about their “fine art roots” despite not having picked up a brush in a decade. When they did share their work, it looked like a middle schooler’s first attempt at being deep. I’ve seen aunties who paint for fun knock out stronger compositions with better colour theory.

But they had a title. And in some rooms, that was enough to pass for vision.

🧠 Experience Doesn’t Necessarily Equal Insight

The idea that you need a stacked client list or a job title to have a valid opinion isn’t just outdated. It’s harmful. It shuts out voices we should be learning from.

And it’s especially wild in a field where design thinking has become practically scripture. The entire framework is built around empathy, collaboration, and co-creation. We’re taught to bring in diverse voices, to listen first, and to treat everyone’s perspective as a source of insight. So when someone says only people with a certain client list can have ideas worth sharing, they’re not just being elitist, they’re breaking the very process they claim to follow.

We don’t grow as an industry by gatekeeping. We grow by platforming. By making space for the people doing the work in public, often without a safety net or a brand name to hide behind.

🤲 The Audacity to Share

There’s something especially strange about criticizing people for sharing ideas, especially when it’s unpaid, unprompted, and offered in good faith.

Not every take will be perfect. Not every framework will land. But sharing a perspective, building in public, or creating something to help others grow? That’s not arrogance. That’s generosity.

And in a field built on iteration and feedback, we should be encouraging more of it. Not policing who’s “earned the right” to post a carousel or write a thread.

Because the moment we start punishing people for going beyond their job description, we’re not just gatekeeping, we’re making it harder for the whole industry to evolve.

✨ Thought Leadership Is About Thinking, Not Tenure

You don’t become a thought leader because you lead a team. You become one because your thoughts lead. Because you provoke, inspire, challenge, and reimagine. Because you care enough to share.

So whether you’ve got one client or none, 20 years in the game or two, if you’re building, thinking, questioning, and experimenting, you’re not pretending to be a thought leader.

You are one.

🧭 Let’s Redefine the Term

We don’t need more people doing the job and calling it leadership. We need more people brave enough to say something real, not just something approved.

The voices shaping design right now are everywhere. Some are in agencies. Many are not. And if your first instinct is to dismiss someone for sharing what they’ve learned, you might be confusing experience with entitlement.