Episode #98: Building Inclusive, High-Performance UX Teams with Sudha Broslawsky

A hiring process can claim to measure UX ability while testing something far removed from the work itself. In Episode #98, UX leader Sudha Broslawsky explains how leaders can replace inherited hiring habits with structured, inclusive assessment and then create the conditions for people to grow. Her guidance begins with candidate experience and extends through team composition, mentorship, leadership opportunities, and cross-functional empathy.

What you'll learn

• Why take-home design exercises can create an uneven candidate experience

• How structured rubrics and consistent questions support more objective assessment

• What collaborative sessions can reveal about communication, influence, and conflict

• How team composition should reflect an organization's design maturity

• Why coaching, real opportunities, and learning beyond UX help future leaders develop

Replace artificial exercises with structured collaboration

Sudha questions take-home design exercises because design does not happen alone or within an arbitrary two- or four-hour window. The exercise removes the collaborators, organizational context, and feedback that shape real UX work. It can also create inequity. A candidate with few responsibilities may invest far more time than requested, while a single parent with a demanding job and several active applications may not have that option. The result can reflect available time rather than ability to perform the role.

Leaders should first define what they need to learn about each candidate. Sudha recommends a hiring rubric, agreed evaluation criteria, consistent questions, and training for every interviewer. Interviewers can ask for examples of challenging the status quo, pursuing an opportunity, taking initiative, influencing others, or building support for a different direction. Those stories give candidates a chance to demonstrate growth and leadership through work they actually performed.

If an exercise is still necessary, Sudha suggests making it part of the interview and closer to real work. A collaborative whiteboarding session with cross-functional participants lets the panel observe how a candidate thinks, builds on other people's ideas, responds to feedback, handles conflict, and manages a loud voice in the room. The assessment becomes both more realistic and more relevant to the skills the team needs.

Build for the environment, not an abstract ideal

The right balance of hard and soft skills depends on career level, team needs, and company context. Early-career practitioners may bring developing technical ability while still learning collaboration and communication. Interviewers should assess them at the appropriate level while also looking at their capacity and intention to learn.

Organizational maturity changes the hiring strategy too. A company where design is new may create more friction for UX practitioners than a design-forward company. Sudha recommends accounting for that reality by hiring some senior people who have experience influencing partners and improving relationships, alongside people with strong growth potential. The goal is not to apply one profile to every opening. It is to combine people so they can support one another and build a culture of growth and excellence.

This context also clarifies why cultural contribution cannot be reduced to vague impressions. Collaboration, communication, teamwork, and influence should be defined in the rubric and explored through specific evidence. A structured process gives the panel a shared basis for evaluating those skills instead of relying on personal affinity.

Develop leadership through real work and wider perspectives

Leadership potential becomes visible in everyday behavior. Sudha advises leaders to notice who supports colleagues, identifies gaps, proposes a process or framework, takes initiative, and helps others see a different direction. Once that potential appears, managers can learn the person's goals and strengths, point out capabilities the person may not recognize, and connect them with opportunities across the business.

Courses, books, and development budgets can help with skills such as storytelling, facilitation, or tools like Figma. Sudha places even greater emphasis on learning through action. Leaders can create small and large assignments, pair people for coaching or mentorship, and give them room to practice.

Development should also extend beyond the UX function. Product, engineering, data, and marketing partners hold knowledge that can expand a practitioner's perspective. Sudha encourages aspiring leaders to learn from people who build strong cultures and teams in other disciplines, not only from those who followed a UX leadership path. Her own effort to understand how engineers build products changed frustration into empathy and helped her form stronger engineering partnerships.

Listen to Episode #98

The episode gives UX leaders concrete alternatives for hiring fairly and developing people after they join. Listen to Episode #98 with Sudha Broslawsky for the complete conversation.