 Leadership is a frequent topic of discussion within the product management community. You won’t find much of a debate on the topic of whether product management is a leadership position, but you will find much discussion on the depth of the leadership. The discussion will span across whether product management should have people management responsibilities, whether they can be accountable for key performance indicators or just generally how to be a better leader.In a recent webinar , David Locke suggested he though the product manager role was more accurately as titled as Product Leader. Perhaps David can comment as to why he thinks this title might be more accurate. He discusses this in the webinar around the 44 minute mark. The product management leadership angst generally occurs when it appears like a lack of authority is blocking your plan. The reality is that your powers of influence are probably lacking. If you know me (actually maybe no one knows this), I love word definitions. I look up one word a day, mostly due the fact that I had a history of not reading very much. I am reading much more now. Anyway, here is how the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines authority and influence. Actually they have a few different definitions for each word (of course they do), but I thought these were closer aligned to product management than the others.
From a product management perspective, I typically get nervous if you are managing a product and people. The people distract from the time that the product requires and not managing people will generally preclude you from the authoritative leadership you might be seeking. The power of influence is perhaps the most important tool in your professional toolkit. It should be a skill that you are constantly working to improve. It blends in a number of your personal traits including likability, compassion, empathy and understanding. But it also requires that you put the effort on your end to be able to justify anything you might need. People can be more easily led if you use market-, fact-or customer-based evidence for your requirements. I tell people that product management is 90% leadership and of that 100% will be by influence and supported by all your market sensing activities.
Again, I defer you to the two experts on the topic of product management and leadership: Image Source: Bonner Center for Service and Learning |
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Entries Tagged 'Leadership' ↓
Authority vs. Influence
September 24th, 2009 — Leadership, Product Management
Book Review: Winning By Jack Welch, Suzy Welch
August 30th, 2009 — Book Review, Leadership, Strategy
 I recently finished reading Winning. I was looking for something on leadership and poked Art Petty for a suggestion. Thanks Art, this was a classic read.There were so many good lessons in here with respect to leadership and strategy it was almost overwhelming. One of my favourite topics was the chapter about candor; a truly powerful skill for the old mental toolset. Although I understand the power of this, I am aware of how this could be truly damaging to your career if not used properly. can•dor (kndr) n. Frankness or sincerity of expression; openness. Despite the book having leadership undertones throughout, there was a great chapter on leadership where Jack discussed eight things leaders do. This list includes team evaluation, coaching, articulating the vision, making decisions, probing and pushing with curiosity and inspiring risk taking.
Lastly, he wrote a chapter on strategy. Given my interest in what strategy is and how people perceive, it was refreshing to see him try to simplify it. I loved this quote:
After reading that, there is no wonder the first chapter was all about mission and values. His definition of strategy is:
I cannot disagree with that. He then broke down five questions to make your strategy real:
I could go on with lessons learned from this book, but like Made to Stick I highly recommend that you read this book. Image Source: HarperCollins Publishers |
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Leadership, Strategy, Vision ie Three Peas One Pod
August 21st, 2009 — Leadership, Strategy
 Been a blank-blog week for me… some weeks I have no ideas, others more. Part of it, I am sure, was spending 5 days in the desert and blocking out just about everything I was trying to block.I am getting to the end of the latest book on my desk, Winning by Jack Welch and it is helping cement in the fact that strategy without leadership is not strategy. You can strategize all day, but without leadership you have the equivalent of someone who is pounding salt. Leadership, like strategy, is a really big topic. Most of what you will read will tell you that leadership is not about you, but about the people around you. Very true! Leadership includes building self-confidence in your team, making people see the vision and then living it, establishing trust with candor, making decisions, and celebrating the wins. The other point worth mentioning, you can lead without direct reports as effectively as you can with direct reports. There are many ways to tie leadership back to strategy, but I wanted to focus on the vision aspect of it. I have written about vision in the past, Roadmap: Product Vision Statement. As you start to flush out your vision, you will need to consider your resources, not only who, but how the vision can be articulated in such a way that people are able to live it. The primary message from Made to Stick was getting people excited enough about your idea (read: strategy and vision) that they will execute on it. Product management is 90% leadership, but unless you have a well-defined vision it will be impossible to make decisions and lead people in such a way that the vision enables them to comfortably make their own decisions. Time to dust off the vision and pass it through the -Made to Stick- principles again. Remember… no vision, no leadership, no strategy. See a previous post of leadership quotes, Leadership Lessons from McKinsey. And here are my two favourite leadership blogs from people with ties to product management: Image Source: The Risesmart Blog |
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Leadership Lessons from McKinsey
July 31st, 2009 — Leadership, Product Management, Roadmaps, Strategy
 Another great article from McKinsey. Do you subscribe? I just finished reading “Leadership lessons for hard times by Dennis Carey, Michael Patsalos-Fox, and Michael Useem. Here are some thought provoking comments…
Did he mean perfect or accurate? What are you measuring to help you make decisions?
How often you are reviewing your strategy? Weekly? Why not?
There is lots of talk in the industry about leadership and communication. As product managers, with a constant craving to ask why, you have to believe that the others on the team as asking why too. Share your ideas and tell them why and listen to feedback.
The reality is that there is never a valid excuse for taking your eye off the long-term strategy. Sure your definition of long-term might be different someone else’s definition of long-term, but you need to be constantly planning and feeding the planning engine with data.
Not sure I need to add anything else to this. Image Source: The McKinsey Quarterly |
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