Product managers lead the charge on one of the most difficult processes on earth: bringing a product to market. They are there from the beginning, guiding a team of diverse talents from the idealism of the ideation stage to the realism of the market.
Product management is a manifold process, one that encompasses many moving parts. To be a great product manager is to master a disparate set of skills and learn to leverage them through lifelong practice.
Finding the best product managers can be incredibly difficult. However, knowing some key traits of great product managers can help you immensely in your search:
1. Decisive
Product managers must be manifold talents by the very nature of their position. This means juggling a myriad of issues and demands that must balance between the budget and the roadmap. Essentially, this boils down to making the best decisions in the shortest time frame. Indecisive leaders lead to indecisive results.
As such, decisiveness is seen as one of the most critical skills a product manager can possess. The greatest product managers make decisions that complement the team and the business in one fell swoop every day.
2. Collaborative
Great product managers are also great team captains. The best managers make sure to include input from each team member when making decisions that affect both the team and the product. A collaborative mindset is essential for getting the best out of team members and the product itself.
Collaboration is the core of innovation and is a skill that is invaluable for product managers. It is also key to bridge the teams between the development side and the business side. Great collaborators make it a priority to keep everyone on the same page as to not cause any disruptions to the development process.
In a well-functioning team, there is a clear line of communication between all departments thanks to the efforts of great managers who understand the value of communication.
3. Empathetic
Getting to the core of a team and finding out what motivates them to action is an indispensable skill of great product managers. Empathy, once derided as superfluous in the development environment, is a formidable tool in accruing accurate assessments of teams and businesses.
Top product managers know when to deploy empathy and when to be calculated in their decisions. Empathy in product management is requisite to pull out the core motivators in a team and get them on board with the mission of the product. Whenever changes are needed or staff shake-ups occur, empathy can be used instead of distant “corporatese” to transition the development team smoothly and rejoin progress without disruption.
4. Knowledgeable
While seemingly obvious, great product managers are always knowledgeable about the skills required to build their products and envision their plans. However, the greatest product managers are knowledgeable well beyond their scope and use the skills of a polymath to persuade the team and enhance the development process. They are entrusted with the manifold process of product lifecycle management.
Knowledgeable team managers are seen as more trustworthy and their technical proficiency allows them to take on many roles to push the product through to completion. This multitudinous mountain of skills is exhibited by elite product managers who know what it takes to see a product thrive.
Strong aptitudes across the board lead to strong results that everyone can celebrate. A great product manager redoubles the strength of their team and makes a product that exceeds expectations and brings out the best in the business.
Conclusion
Product managers need to be decisive to lead. There are many paths up the mountain and product managers are tasked with finding the right one. Decisions cannot be made in a vacuum, great product managers are empathetic and collaborative. They can tune into their team and their customers. Without these key traits, their plan of action will fall short.
Business knowledge and technical aptitude are also requisite. Without a firm foundation of business education and technical ability, product managers are unable to create profitable products.
The best product managers can defend their decisions and inspire faith in their teams. Without the ability to persuade or inspire confidence, they will have trouble leading teams reliably.
