The Interview: Margaret Lee
How a UX designer built a community and culture program to support Google's UX leaders—and her optimism for the potential of AI in coaching.
During her time at Google, Margaret Lee was invited to built a global learning and development program for Google’s User Experience (UX) team members. Today, she has her own coaching practice, and coaches through The Leadership Consortium as well. Connect with Margaret on LinkedIn. —Steph
Tell us about yourself.
I'm Margaret Lee, and I've been coaching for a little over two years. Prior to that, I spent decades working in UX in the tech sector—including at Google where I led teams for Maps, Chrome, and Search. User Experience evolved rapidly during my time at Google; it was nascent at first, compared to engineering, so there were opportunities to grow and shape the function within the company. Given Google had one of the biggest UX teams in the industry, we also considered how we were influencing (and being influenced by) the profession at large.
As I progressed through the ranks of leadership, I experienced the excitement and challenges of a rapidly-growing, dynamic culture, and I became more interested in organizational design and the development of people as a result: How do we improve conditions so innovation can happen, or how do we set folks up to have successful careers in UX? Nine years into my time at Google, I proposed, and built, a program called UX Community and Culture (UXCC) to empower and support leaders and their teams. I loved it. It gave me a renewed sense of energy, and it’s what led me to my career in coaching today.
Can you share more about building the UXCC program; how did you approach it?
Building a program for the Google UX community was different than building products for the world at large. The mission of UXCC was twofold: One, create the conditions to successfully deliver on the promise of excellent product experiences; and two, alleviate the pain points that made collaboration challenging. Part of my role was getting to know UX leaders to understand what life was like for them—what did they need? How might they partner with others to multiply the effects of particularly successful organizational dynamics? It was through this research, honestly, that I saw how lonely leadership can be. I began to gain perspective on the common issues that leaders were facing, and how programs like coaching might support them. I also thought about what training emerging leaders might want, or what types of community connections could help reduce their isolation. When I left Google in 2021, UXCC had grown from a pilot program of three people to a team of 20 supporting thousands worldwide.
What is your training and certification as a coach?
I studied with the Hudson Institute of Coaching without knowing whether I would go on to become a coach but because it was a natural extension of my work in learning and development. Within the first month of the eight-month training program, I was like, “Yeah, this is what I’m going to do.” I find working with leaders on their growth areas fascinating. I also hold a Professional Coaching Certification (PCC) through the International Coaching Federation and am entering training to become a certified Enneagram practitioner.
How does your previous career in technology influence you as a coach?
There’s a strong empathy component to UX. We are considering what customers want, what they need, their pain points and how they’re doing things today—and then what’s missing. It’s almost like an anthropological perspective. In that sense, there’s a nice overlap with coaching, which is similarly focused on clients’ needs, and opportunities, behaviors, and goals.
A lot of my clients also come from tech or UX. (I wasn’t intending this but it’s what naturally unfolded.) A lot of folks struggle with the hard parts of leadership, and it can feel personal when it doesn’t go well. We’re whole human beings and it’s hard to separate who we are as professionals from who we are as people. I don’t know if today I’d say coaching is my final career, but it feels like I’ve come home in some ways—it’s a natural convergence of everything I’ve done professionally. It sounds trite and corny, but I do feel really lucky to do this work.
Did you have an “a-ha” moment when you realized the power of the coaching model for yourself?
It came when I was building the UXCC program and working with a coach myself. I wasn’t just supporting others but actively figuring out my own leadership perspective too, thinking through who I needed to be to succeed in this new role. There were patterns and habits that I wanted to revisit because I’d outgrown them, but I didn’t know how to tackle it. A big one was exercising my voice—(that’s something that came remarkably late in my career, and I actually wrote an article about it.) I realized my challenge was rooted in my upbringing as the daughter of immigrants who held expectations that I assimilate into American culture, that children should be seen and not heard. I think those expectations carried into my adulthood much longer than I was willing to admit. And while I was happy with my career progression, my comfort level felt hampered. I was in leadership roles but struggling internally. Coaching helped me get comfortable and confident using my voice.
What are you like as a coach?
What am I like as a coach, self-reported? One of my clients described coaching as “business therapy” and I can relate to that. If it will benefit the client, I can be pretty direct. I’m not afraid to go places—but I don’t hold things tightly, either. I’m not afraid to shine light in areas that I think we might examine, so I listen for clues in a sense. I try to balance empathy and objectivity. I tend to observe and synthesize, to help clients clarify, reframe, or consider things differently.
What do you wish everyone knew about coaching?
That it’s a safe place to explore options for how you might want to progress, personally or professionally. It’s an opportunity to work with someone who has no agenda other than to help you succeed. Friends and family can be empathetic and supportive, but they aren’t always going to be objective.
What is your vision for the coaching industry?
I’d like to see business and professional coaching become more available, and not be quite so precious as a commodity. There’s inevitable questions about AI and coaching—and I’m optimistic about AI in general. I’m optimistic that it can potentially address the challenge of making coaching more accessible, as long as a level of quality and standards are maintained. Maybe there are stages, or elements, of coaching that AI can serve. In other words, it’s not a total replacement.
The “a-ha” moments between a coach and a client aren’t easily bottled. They’re not easily templated. There’s also aspects of the coach-client relationship that would need to be considered—how trust is built, for example, or how patterns are detected over time. A coach will pull on thematic threads, or notice contradictions and wonder what’s true now. Coaches serve as mirrors for clients. AI could conceivably do that, but it would need to be trained on what to look for, how to identify key observations and present them at the right moment, and how to help clients move forward productively. That’s what I strive to do with my clients.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.