Are You a New Product Leader? Tips and Tricks from Seasoned Pros
I recently posed a simple question on LinkedIn: What are your top tips for new product leaders? I started off by sharing a few simple tips of my own:
Remember your job is to build the team, not the product
Get good at storytelling
Remember the issue is more likely to be the culture than the employee.
But I was simply blown away by the response this post received. Clearly, there are plenty of people in my network who want to share their experience and learnings with other new leaders.
Rather than keep it contained within my LinkedIn feed, I decided I’d gather their advice here so it’s perhaps a bit easier for people to find and share with others. Here’s what they had to say.
I would add:
listen closely to the critical stakeholders as there is a reason behind their criticism.
learn active listening skills
It is always the process
Accept people in your teams are at different levels and adapt your support to their stage.
Coach your team instead of telling them what to do. Everything is contextual.
Level up your facilitation skills
Remember that you are already equipped to understand people and their needs and create value for them. It is all people within your company, too. Not just outside.
Lewin's equation: behavior = ƒ(individual, environment).
Deming: “a bad system beats a good person any time.” This is also true the other way round.
You're not here to have all the answers.
(Self-)reflection is a keystone habit.
Having power-over lends a much bigger weight to your words as you might initially realize. Tread lightly.
Your old IC skills are not that relevant anymore—let go. Management is not a progression from where you came from but a whole new skillset and a different career track. Do your homework.
Your main product now is the organization that makes the product.
Storytelling is important to have. Yet, compelling stories are not necessarily true and can drive very bad decisions. Don't forget about critical thinking. Establish sanity checks for stories.
Reverse your stories for executive communication. Start top-down with the result and the decision to make.
Remember to ask questions not give answers
Remember to act on the systemic cause, not on all the fires you see in front of you
And the most important one: remember that this is hard and you are doing your best ❤️
I really like the 3rd in Petra’s list on culture. One of the aspects underlying that is how are decisions made in that culture and how do people align in that culture. Related to it, I wanted to add: Everyone’s time and organization resources are precious. Figure out what’s the most important thing to focus on. Get feedback on it and take everyone along. Answers don’t have to come from you.
Create a culture of learning, a safe space to learn both through successes as well as failures. Product work is all about learnings.
Be open and educate your team as well to be open for unknown unknowns.
"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools."
Spend time and effort building relationships across the organization.
Respect your team—remember that as their boss you now have the ability to make or ruin their day with what you say and how you say it
Don't psych yourself out now you're 'a leader' and feel you have to throw away everything that's got you this far.
Help your team by raising their awareness of their own thought process. Ask things like: "Walk me through your thinking. What data & insights are feeding your view? What trade-offs have you made?" This develops their analytical & critical thinking.
If you're moving in laterally, work in a real product team (e.g. a trio on a mission). You can't fix the shipyard without knowing what good ship building looks & feels like.
Be transparent with your team about what's important to you and how to work with you
Be clear for yourself what mental models will guide your approach (i.e. Decision Stack), but don't make this part of your conversations within management. Instead try to adapt to their lingo, their topics.
Accept that many people will be curious to hear about your "strategy" much earlier than you can realistically have one. Take your time and find out what it is they REALLY hope for (i.e. I once learned that product priorities for the next quarter was what people really wanted when they asked for strategy after I joined).
Start learning about systems-first, people-centered org change.
I like www.thekeyforces.org but there are lots of useful models out there, so just start digging into something!
Start learning about the organizational "system." Mission, strategy, product you will support. Complete SWOT analysis of why the organization has been successful. Having to align with organization and product strategy is key to success.
Assume that many/most of the common practices of strategy, goals, and leadership, are wrong. Take the time to learn what these really mean.
Please don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn trying to absorb and implement all the models, frameworks, etc. Only a few will apply to your use case… You have time to figure that out. Remember that this is a social platform and people are vying for you attention and time, and this is done by creating FOMO. You will be ok.
Have a lot of conversations with your customers, stakeholders, and teams and start to understand the common themes you are hearing and seeing. This is the start.....
Your job is to bring certainty in a very uncertain world. Certainty that this is the right direction to go, that this is the right problem to solve, that this is the right solution. And when a solution fails, certainty that this wasn't wasted (pro tip: it wasn't wasted time).
Listen more.
Product Managers should be judged on sustainability of an ongoing organization/deliverable.
Think for 100 years, not next year.
The answer isn't in the building. Install this ethos in individual product managers, designers and engineers (i.e. the Triad).
Talk to users and buyers in your TAM with 1:1 interviews and surveys.
Focus on the problems to be solved, solving them, the features needed to solve them, and the willingness to pay to solve them.
1. Regularly sync with your team to give them the support and feedback they need on the product.
2. Communicate upper management's overarching vision and insights to help your team understand the context and rationale behind your requests or suggestions.
3. Assist your team in accessing resources or connecting with the appropriate colleagues, especially for cross-team projects. This is crucial in remote work environments, where new members might need to become more familiar with organizational responsibilities.
Prioritize your time with more scrutiny than ever before (urgent != important)
(over)communicate what is in the focus and what isn't at the given point in time
Talking with the users/customers/partners will always pay off, no matter the step on the ladder
"Why" is not a bad word, and it's needed as a PM; but, sometimes comes across in a negative way to stakeholders not used to being questioned. Learn to ask why in a way that is not threatening and focused on true curiosity.
1. Always understand the context around the feedback you receive.
2. Ask how big of an impact your initiatives will make against the company/department objectives
3. Value your team as gold, work on their strengths, encourage them to re-skill and grow, give them the context, trust and guard-rails to take the right approach.
1. Set or help set clear goals
2. Not specific to PM, but the higher the role the less it is about managing time and things as it is systems and energy. This needs to be learned and balanced with an authentic leadership style.
3. Understand and come to terms with the company’s promo/comp strategy. Set expectations accordingly.
4. What worked personally as an IC may or may not be relevant for team members; don’t assume or force personal experience as truth. Create a problem solving environment not a “I tell, you do” environment
💯, my work purpose since many years has been “building great teams that build great products” 😍
If you haven’t already done so—build a relationship with Sales!
how can you contribute to making your teams and organization to adopt a product mindset?
how can your teams embrace strong product principles in their ways of working, driving data-driven decision-making, and prioritizing discovery and user-centricity in your products, etc?
how can you influence leadership to create an environment for strong product careers?
A lot of gold in the comments. I will add:
Don't forget to keep in touch with your customers, users, and partners. Even if there are many important internals, don't get lost in them.
Collaborate with your leadership peers, they are your partners in crime
Establish a braintrust/peer group outside of your organization. Leadership can feel lonely, and there is much to learn from people in similar situations.
Update and underscore the strategy as soon as possible. It’s what leads to everything else.
Final thoughts from me
As we wrap up, I am, time and time again, blown away by the power of this product community. Everybody is so willing to share their learnings, creating an environment that fosters growth and support. It's such a humbling experience to witness this collective wisdom and generosity.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who contributed. Your insights not only help new product leaders but also strengthen our community as a whole. This collective knowledge sharing shows that every person in product has valuable advice to give and stories to share.
Let's continue to support and learn from one another. Here's to building great products and even greater teams.
If your interest has been piqued by any of these topics, I’ve been writing and creating resources for becoming a better product leader over the past several years. Here are a few ways to continue your learning journey:
To learn more about product leadership in general, check out my book, STRONG Product People.
To work on your storytelling skills, check out my talk and slides, “Don’t convince. Inspire!”
And if you’re really serious about developing your leadership skills, maybe you’d like to hire me as your coach? Find out more about my coaching packages here.