After more than a decade at the helm of her firm, Los Angeles–based designer Huma Sulaiman found herself saddled with a talented but challenging employee who left her stressed and distracted. Learning to deal with the situation allowed her to step into the next phase of her business with a renewed sense of her key values.
“Mentoring junior staff” was a core responsibility on a job description you recently posted. When did you start thinking about mentorship as an essential quality in a leader at your firm?
To have a successful studio, you have to make everybody feel like part of the whole. To me, the only way to do that is to make them feel like it’s theirs too, and the way to do that is to help them understand what the business is and how it’s done. Even though mentorship was always a key part of how I wanted to develop my team, I wasn’t consciously thinking about it. But as I’m growing, I’m learning that the only way I can empower my team is if everybody is on the same page.
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