Employees Are Paramount

Experienced product people with strong soft skills are low in supply in most markets. One can derive the characteristics of good product leaders from the high level traits of a successful team. 

One key aspect in this respect is a product leader’s ability to align team members around a shar...

Having a deep interest in learning, enthusiastically accepting new challenges, encouraging others to speak up, and listening to their perspectives are all actions driven by curiosity.

The primary focus has to be on the problems faced by customers. Instead of features, one can opt to provide themes, based on what the customer wants and what problem is solved.

Themes are a promise to solve problems not to build features. Once you’ve truly understood customer prob...

Product leaders are typically comfortably wearing the hats of marketer, manager, technologist, customer advocate, and facilitator, to name a few.

This doesn’t mean they are experts at each of these roles; rather, they are comfortable working across all areas as the role evolves o...

Common characteristics of Successful Product Teams:

• Lifelong learning.
• Strong communication.
• Empathy.
• Diversity.
• Business savvy.
• Cross-functional representation.
• Collocation.
• Autonomy.
• Interdependence.
• Accountabili...

This might be controversial, but when you consider what product leaders do each day, it’s no surprise that selling is one of the things to look out for in product leaders.

To be clear, this is not the type of selling associated with business development; rather, it’s not the type that wor...

Successful product teams do NOT require hard skills, such as engineering, design or even specific product management expertise.

In contrast, with product managers, the focus is much more on soft skills.

The ability to share information in a clear, concise manner is a necessary and desirable skill for a product leader.

Whether they’re talking, listening, writing, planning, sharing, or facilitating, the goal is always to be understood.

• Equanimity.
• Working with ease under pressures and deadlines.
• Having an understanding that shipping products is a race against time.
• Displaying grace even under fire.

Product management and product leadership are people-first roles. Teams are made up of individuals who each bring their own personalities, perspective, and opinions. Understanding what makes people tick makes it easier to get the best out of them and identify when there is a problem.

The job profile of a product leader is akin to a CEO of a company.

A product leader is ultimately responsible for the success and failure of a product, and by extension, the company itself. This raises the question of what makes a true product leader.

We find out th...