How to Become an Effective Leader in Architecture

In this Architecture Social session, Stephen Drew is joined by Tania Ihlenfeld, architect, author and founder of the project leadership consultancy Ede Enablers, for a practical conversation on what it takes to become an effective leader in architecture. The conversation runs for around 50 minutes.

Who this is for

Architects and built environment professionals stepping into a leadership role for the first time, established leaders who want a calmer and more effective way to run complex projects, and anyone who wants to start leading before they hold the title.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this session you will be able to:

1. Describe leadership in architecture as an enabling, curatorial role rather than command and control.
2. Plan the transition from doing the work to leading it, relinquishing detail while building trust.
3. Use a clear project vision to streamline decisions and bring a team with you.
4. Hold honest conversations and manage expectations in every direction, even if you are an introvert.
5. Meet demanding deadlines while protecting your team from burnout.
6. Advocate for your own progression without waiting for a formal review.

Leadership is an enabling role

Tania defines a leader as an enabler rather than a dictator, which is the thinking behind the name Ede Enablers. The leader curates information up to clients and stakeholders and back to the team, enabling each group to perform at its best and make better decisions.

The hardest part is the transition in

The toughest moment is often the first step into leadership, when you still hold all the detail but have to hand work over. Tania advises relinquishing control of the detail gradually, building trust so you can still ask for context, and sharing the bigger picture you now see with your team.

Vision is the leader's first job

Every successful project needs a vision that evolves rather than sits on a shelf, and ownership of it should be shared well beyond the design team. A shared vision streamlines decisions and helps a team judge what comes off the list when a deadline bites.

Framework, accountability and measuring what matters

Tania sets out a flexible project framework covering brief, scope, ways of working and clear accountabilities, and draws a distinction between being responsible for a task and being accountable for it. She encourages teams to measure progress throughout a project and to build a culture where it is safe to test, trial and fail fast on small, isolated pieces of work.

Be courageous and manage expectations

Effective leaders are willing to say not now to a client and to explain why. Tania argues for giving clients less but higher quality, along with a clear map for making decisions, and for having difficult conversations early, because problems are far cheaper to solve at the start of a project than later on.

Introverts can lead too

Leaders do not need to be extroverts. Tania, who describes herself as an introvert, suggests playing to your strengths, choosing a quiet moment for a one to one, and leading with genuine care and clear intent rather than bravado.

Protect your team from burnout

When a hard push is unavoidable, acknowledge it, keep it bounded to a short period such as two weeks, and then protect recovery time afterwards. Moving beyond people pleasing, and instead serving the outcome and the team, is healthier than trying to please everyone all of the time.

Advocate for yourself and keep learning

Rather than letting frustration build up to the annual review, Tania recommends frequent, low key conversations, understanding the wider context before raising an issue, and tying any request for progression or pay to the responsibilities you are taking on. She also makes the case for leaders to keep learning and to seek mentors, treating asking for help as a strength rather than a weakness.

Key terms

• Enabling leadership: leading by curating information and enabling teams, clients and stakeholders, rather than dictating.
• Project vision: a shared, evolving picture of what a project is trying to achieve, used to guide decisions.
• Strategic framework: the flexible structure of brief, scope, ways of working and accountabilities that holds a project together.
• Responsible versus accountable: doing a task versus owning the outcome of it.
• Fast failure: safely testing and learning from small experiments so the wider project does not fail.
• Lead before you lead: contributing to vision, framework, measurement and team culture before you hold the title.

Reflective prompts for your CPD record

1. Where on a current project are you holding onto detail you could entrust to someone else, and what would help you let go?
2. Can you state your project's vision in a single sentence, and does your whole team share it?
3. What is one expectation, with a client, a leader or your team, that you need to manage more courageously this month?

About the guest

Tania Ihlenfeld is an architect, author and entrepreneur and the founder of Ede Enablers, a London based project leadership consultancy for the built environment. She has more than 23 years of experience, including almost 13 years at Grimshaw in London, and has led teams from small residential schemes to large scale infrastructure, including a 100 strong multidisciplinary team on the Heathrow Expansion Programme. She is the author of the leadership book Build Success. Find out more about Ede Enablers or listen to the full episode on Spotify.