Yo. You're talking to yourself again, but we can discuss that later.

You’ve hit a good point in your career: you have a cadre of feisty, intelligent designers working with you to create some bad-ass concoction of interactive digital media, i.e. games. What you don’t know is that there is a landmine embedded in your ego that you will need to delicately disassemble before it goes off and destroys the promise of the rest of your career.

You got into this gig because you had a burning ambition to explore this medium. You keep at it because, let’s be funny here, the soul still burns. But long ago you realized that your solipsistic goals were inert without a team behind them, and that you, alone, were not as important as the collective expression made possible by a talented team, all of whom had fantastic design ideas, no matter their discipline. After all: they’re smart and they love games, too.

Remember that as you lead your team. You are not a general or a captain: you are a guide. You are leading them through the minefield of industrial game development, ideally with their egos intact and their status validated. Don’t use your experience to articulate what you believe the best idea is: ask great questions and trust that the people with you will make it amazing. Empower and enable them. Keep them on the path. You will constantly be surprised by joy.