I understand Americans are experiencing a lot of anxiety related to political leadership just now. I get that politics can unhinge the best of us from time to time. Political figures can loom large, like celebrities, and they can say and do provocative things that illicit strong emotional reactions.
What I don’t get, though, is why so many UX leaders feel like it’s suddenly okay to routinely broadcast their politics in their formerly quite professional social media streams. I’m a UX designer myself, so these are the leaders I follow, but I’d wager this is happening all across the professional board.
The last time I checked, politics was considered a kind of noise that didn’t belong in professional streams because (a) it could get you fired if the wrong person in your company disapproved of your post, or (b) it could offend followers and fans who might love your professional persona but detest your politics. Either way, you could do yourself a serious professional disservice by expressing your political views in a professional environment.
Politics may have heated up lately, but politics have always been around. They weren’t invented in 2020. And yet the UX design leaders I follow are professing their political opinions in their professional streams like never before. It catches me off guard and weirds me out. It isn’t why I chose to follow them.
To me, jumping on board the political rage bus now only seems to telegraph the following:
- You believe that your politics matter more than your job. Job shmob, your actions say, in the full knowledge that you could lose your job over political speech in some states.
- You don’t realize how much like a bully you sound.
- You don’t realize how fatiguing it is for your followers to be continually reminded of the political situation in America — especially when they may be looking to your posts or vlogs for respite from that very thing.
- You have become confused about why people are interested in your opinions. Stating your expert opinion is part of your job as a UX leader, but at some point you crossed the border into a zone where you are not considered an expert at all.
- You are suffering under the illusion that everyone else thinks as you do. Even though you are UX leader, you are unaware of your total submission to the consensus bias — a bias that causes people to assume others share their values when they do not.
It takes restraint and self-discipline to shut up about your politics in professional streams. I have come to admire those who do. I trust their professional judgment more than those who don’t.
