About this Session
A powerful session for current and upcoming leaders
Strong design leadership does not start with strategy, it starts with self-leadership. In this talk, Dian Wessels explores how understanding and applying your natural strengths can transform the way you lead, collaborate, and build teams. Drawing on real-world experience leading design teams in scale-ups across different industries, he offers a practical lens on how strengths shape behaviour, decision-making, and team dynamics.
You’ll learn how to identify your core strengths, recognise their shadow sides under pressure, and intentionally combine talents to create happy, high-performing teams. The talk also reframes team friction, not as a cultural failure, but as a signal of misaligned strengths. Find out how to harness strong personalities and “rebels” as a source of momentum rather than resistance.
Key learnings:
- A practical framework for strengths-based self-leadership
- How to identify and manage the shadow side of your strengths under pressure
- Techniques to turn team friction into productive collaboration
How to build balanced, resilient design teams through complementary strengths.
