#27 – Facebook’s VP of Product Design Margaret Stewart about leadership lessons and career advice

The Role Models Podcast

Margaret Stewart is the VP Product Design at Facebook. Margaret credits being the youngest child of 9, as well as having initially studied Theatre as incredibly useful tools in the collaborative nature of all her work today. She then did a graduate studies at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunication Program before starting her career at Tripod - one of the big homepage building sites in the first dot.com era - and rising up the ranks through the design teams at Google Search and Google News, to become the global Head of Design at YouTube. These days, Margaret leads the designers and researchers who help the tools for business all around the world, allowing them to connect with Facebook’s 1.7B users in meaningful ways. This episode touches on many different topics including: - Honouring the creativity inside of you, and why it’s OK to experiment and play around if you don’t know what you want to do - How to be a good listener and collaborate well - How to create the conditions so that people can do amazing work - Key tips for positive leadership - How to work against career inertia - and why going into management isn’t necessarily the best idea. Margaret approaches her work with a total appreciation of great design as well as the end goal of improving people's lives. Her knowledge, passion and insight into how to create workplace environments which inspire and allow people to create amazing work will be an invaluable tool for everyone - whether just starting out in careers, or already in management positions. Follow Margaret on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mags Follow Margaret on Medium: https://medium.com/@mags Check out Margaret’s personal blog: http://www.fountly.com/ Thanks to our patrons for this episode: Anna Caroline who coaches leaders in Berlin: http://truthcircles.com/ Caoimhe Keogan https://twitter.com/caoimhekeogan Johannes Kleske https://johanneskleske.com If you want to help us create The Role Models Podcast in the future, become a patron and chip in $1, $3, $5, or $10 per episode. Read more about the different tiers and rewards on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/rolemodels