The situation
In early 2025 the UX practice at Aflac lost its director, and the role stayed open for five months. The CTO asked me to help run the practice during the search, and for anything UX-related he came to me first.
On paper nothing changed. The design manager, the research manager and I all reported to the CTO, and I had no formal authority over either of them. What I had was the CTO's trust and a team that needed steady direction while the search played out.
I led the way I have led before, through influence rather than title. My first management role came about the same way, when a director noticed I was already leading people who reported to someone else.
Helping the CTO understand what UX does
When I joined in January 2025 the team had recently moved under the CTO. At our March OKR review he was direct: our goals seemed reasonable, but he did not really understand what the team did.
A team whose executive cannot explain its purpose is easy to cut. So the three of us set out to fix it, and I organized the effort. I asked for the meetings, led them and made sure the design and research managers had room to share their own perspectives rather than filtering everything through me.
By the time the new director joined, the CTO had a working understanding of what UX contributed, and the director thanked the three of us for that groundwork. When the company later reduced headcount, the UX team came through intact. I can't draw a straight line from those meetings to that outcome, but the director credited the work.
Keeping the practice resourced
Running the practice meant running its budget, which was the clearest part of the director function I picked up. Working with finance, I identified $162k in misallocated and unused spend and returned it to the broader pool. Some of it went back to the team: people who had spent years on Windows machines they disliked got MacBooks, and I secured training for the team.
Hard calls
Two calls tested my judgment more than the rest.
A peer's people decision. Early in the vacancy, a peer manager who was new to managing asked for a second opinion on a difficult performance situation. I had no authority over her, so I offered a view and left the decision with her. I argued that the response should match the outcome she actually wanted, since escalating early can close off options a direct conversation keeps open. She chose the direct route, and things were improving by the time the new director arrived.
A headcount request. I made the case to the CTO for an added senior hire, and he approved it. The manager who owned the search ran it well and reached two finalists, but a hiring freeze removed the position before it closed. On a search like that I would push harder for speed, though I can't say it would have changed the outcome.
What I took from it
Leading without the title runs on trust and on showing up the same way every day. Over five months I kept the practice steady, built the CTO's understanding of what UX does, put wasted spend back toward the team and was the person my peers came to with hard calls. I learned I could carry the executive relationship, the budget and the people decisions without the title that usually comes with them.