#64 The New Product Leader Dilemma (Part 1): Letting go of execution
A series on the dilemmas of being a new Product Leader and how to address them. This week we're talking about how the hardest part of the change is letting go of being a PM.
The great leap into the unknown: from excellent Product Manager to brand new Product Leader
The PMs who find themselves becoming new Product Leaders usually get there because:
They’re great at their craft. They’re excellent at being Product Managers.
This can mean that they have a reputation for building good products that bring value and know how to build them well. They’re strategic within the context of their scope.
They might also have a relatively strong influence as in they have good relationships with their immediate stakeholders and their name is known by senior leaders in the organization.
But even for excellent Product Managers, the leap to becoming a Product Leader can be jarring.
Especially since the change in role and scope, rarely comes with any training.
If the change is done internally, it’s even worse. There’s no 3-6 month onboarding period. Just the expectation that you can do the job from one day to another.
The Product Leader role in a nutshell
When I was a new Product Leader, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a Product Leader. I thought I “just” needed to do the following:
Define a product strategy for our group
Have 1:1s with the people reporting to me to check in
So I can make sure my team delivers what they committed to deliver
Until I realized that it’s a lot more than that.
Simply put, I always like to say that:
Our role as a Product Leader is to create the ideal environment for our teams to successfully deliver value.
We’re no longer the ones delivering value. Our teams are. And to be able to provide that ideal environment we need to wear three hats simultaneously.
The People Manager - As people managers, we oversee the day-to-day operations of the team. We make sure that the way the team is organized fits the team dynamics we want to have. We make sure our teams are working on the right things and we help them develop their skills so they can deliver value in the best way possible.
The Strategic Leader - As strategic leaders, we create a compelling product vision and accompanying strategy that the team can rally behind; that’s rooted in the company goals. We create alignment between senior stakeholders through influence and trust. And we make sure that priorities and constraints are clear for everybody involved.
The Coach/Mentor - As coaches/mentors to our team, we help them grow as professionals. We help them address their challenges by giving them advice, tools/frameworks or by helping them see their strengths and use them to solve their problems. We help them shift their mindsets and consider different perspectives to address their frustrations and even prevent burnout.
In short, the leadership role requires more than scheduling 1:1s.
🔗 click to read 👉: I’ve broken down the scope and responsibilities of the 3 hats further in a previous newsletter.Why the change feels hard
Aside from having our scope multiply by 1 million from one day to another, there are 3 common challenges I see that new Product Leaders face when they first take on the role (I faced them too!)
They struggle to make the shift from being the executor to enabler - Instead of doing the PM work, the focus is now on setting direction, aligning teams, and creating the conditions for success.
They struggle to navigate people and politics - Influence matters more than authority. This means managing up, down, left and right, advocating for the team, and navigating organizational dynamics while balancing competing priorities.
They struggle with the mental load of being a leader - There can be so much emotional baggage that comes with leadership. People will have their preferences, biases, and diverse opinions to sift through. And if we’re not careful, that can have a huge impact on our well-being. Not to mention all the ambiguity that needs to be combed through while juggling increasing expectations on ourselves and on our teams can feel too much sometimes.
The “New Product Leader Dilemma” is going to be a 3-part series (for now) so let me tackle the challenges one by one. Starting with the first one 👇
💡 Are you a new Product Leader struggling to navigate the change in your leadership role? I’d love to help you set yourself up for success so you can help your team set themselves up for success! Book a call with me to chat and see if we can be fit for a coaching collaboration.
Challenge #1: The shift from being the executor to the enabler
When I first start working with my coaching clients who are new Product Leaders, the first question I ask them is this:
“What kind of leader do you want to be?”
And the answers are different variations of the same thing:
I want to empower my team to do their best.
Vision seems simple. Why is it so hard?
When we were PMs, our work (while challenging) was pretty straightforward. We work with our squads to build the right thing. This means:
We define our roadmap, we prioritize our sprints, we write the requirements, and we follow along on the progress of the development and make quick decisions with our squad.
We deal with our stakeholders directly. We negotiate, we share progress, we manage dependencies.
Our success as a PM is strongly influenced if not directly impacted by our input. We are the captains of our own ship. And the more senior we become, we develop our own ways of doing things: tools, mental models, and communication styles — just to name a few.
And then we become leaders…
We’re no longer captains. We’re commodores, overseeing multiple captains running their own ships.
And while the imagery is sexy, the discomfort that comes from the context switch is not.
What does this mean?
The temptation to swoop in and fix or do things for the team or even tell them exactly what to do when they might be struggling with something (and then giving in followed by remorse because nobody wants to be a micromanager!)
The judging side eye or the muffled gasp when they do something differently from how we would have done it ourselves
The stress of having to deal with the many biases, preferences, and feelings of different people and not being able to meet all of them (and feeling like a complete disappointment to humankind — people pleasers, raise your hand!)
The pressure and mental overload of trying to stay on top of every single thing that everybody is doing… because ~*visibility*~
And the existential crisis of not knowing whether we’re doing well, much less succeeding
Have you ever done a presentation yourself, attended a meeting, or replied to a Slack message that your team should have done themselves? But you did it anyway because you thought it would be faster, easier, or done better?
And then we wonder why our team just won’t get better at communication or why our team is not being proactive at communicating with us or their stakeholders.
Strategies for Change
While there are many tactics to implement the change, the root of the change comes from the understanding of the responsibility of the role.
Our role as a Product Leader is to create the ideal environment for our teams to successfully deliver value.
Our role is no longer to deliver value directly but to create the ideal environment so that others can.
What does an ideal environment mean?
[Strategic Leader 🎩] An environment where there is a clear goal, a strategy to create focus and help decision-making, and communicated constraints. For us, as the leader, quite “simply” this means having a compelling vision, a relevant strategy, and being clear on the expectations and constraints that can impact the work.
Why? It establishes a common ground for what the team is trying to achieve, what is important, and what is not. It gave our team a clear purpose. Which created space and reason for the teams to work together vs fight over dependencies and blockers.
An example: When I was a new Product Leader for our Tribe, I established a business domain for us. Before that we were different teams tackling related but still disconnected topics on "Trust". On top of having multiple teams working on the same thing (an impact of M&A). And that came with heaps of challenges. Duplicate products. "Competing" teams. And stakeholders throwing requests at us as if nothing happened. The creation of a business domain gave us the same direction of travel: a common ground for the team to decide how to tackle the duplication of products, and a better starting point for our conversations with our stakeholders. important note: this was not a silver bullet and it was not a one day change.[People Manager 🎩] An environment where communication flows vs getting stuck in reporting overhead. Visibility is important. And it goes in multiple directions. We’ll need visibility of our team’s work so we can give feedback, help unblock things, or share more context that can help move forward. That visibility will also be contextualized for our stakeholders and the leaders we report to.
The “how” of getting visibility is the point of contention though. And while I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer, being careful of eating up everybody’s time (including our own) with reporting overhead is generally best practice.An example: For my team there were some processes I co-created them and other to help create a flow of communication vs reporting nightmare. It included a mix of several things: 1. Tooling - with the help of our Product Ops, we started using Product Board for our roadmap with some rules of engagement so we didn't always have to be in meetings asking for progress updates. 2. Meetings/Shared sessions with specific purposes - we minimized reporting sessions but there were non-negotiables (e.g. once a month OKRs/Roadmap reviews). Not just for reporting but for visibility to the rest of the organization. Where everybody can ask questions, give feedback, etc. 3. Team-wide "newsletters" that went out to company - we sent out official communication as a tribe to share priorities, results, plans to our stakeholders and leadership. So instead of waiting for them to ask, we proactively shared our stories. important context: my tribe was part of a 5k+ multinational corporation.[A mix of Mentor/Coach and People Manager 🎩] An environment where my team can feel celebrated, safe, and supported in their growth journey. As leaders, I believe that we need to build relationships with our team that are rooted in trust. We trust them, they trust us — so everybody can have a constructive conversation about what’s working, what’s not, and what can be done to improve things.
But to get there some rules of engagement need to be established (to name a few):Expectations are clear both ways. Especially from me. What does good mean? What standards am I holding my team to?
Personal goals are owned by the team. Where do they want to go? What do they want to do more of? What do they want to learn?
Defined team culture with defined and agreed-upon values and behaviors so that we can hold each other accountable to them.
An example: I invested a lot on building relationships between ourselves. 1. I organized team-building sessions where I shared with them my vision for us (as a team not the product) so that they can share theirs too and come together on one that matters to us. We worked together to define ways of working, and surface the important behaviors to support our vision. We even ended up with a team manifesto: "Be Bold, Take Risk, And We Will Be There For You!" 2. 1:1s with my team where we got to talk about what they achieved, their challenges, and a space to brain storm on next best actions. 3. We set aside time for learning. A session to share with each other what they've recently done that got good results so others can also learn from them. Or challenges so that others can chime in with their expertise. Important note: And these spaces also gave the team encouragement to also share their feedback with me so I can also grow and improve as a leader.And last, but not least, I established my definition of success. There are 3 parts to this:
My teams’ success. If they were able to achieve their goals (ideally without drawing blood), then I am successful too.
My teams’ feedback and growth. If they’re growing as PMs, and sharing good feedback about our collaboration, then I did my job well.
Alignment with the leader I want to be. To make sure that even in high-pressure and high-uncertainty situations, I’m still leading by my values.
TL;DR From Captain to Commodore
Many new Product Leaders struggle with the transition (I did too), because while we were excellent PMs, being a leader is a completely different ball game.
And often, we don’t get the right support to prepare for the shi(f)t.
Instead of delivering value directly, our work now is to create an ideal environment where our teams can succeed in delivering value.
To do this, we need to juggle wearing three hats:
🎩 Strategic Leader: Setting the vision, aligning stakeholders, and creating focus.
🎩 People Manager: Facilitating team organization, visibility, and communication.
🎩 Coach/Mentor: Helping their team grow, navigate challenges, and build confidence in their strengths and achievement.
One of the biggest challenges? Letting go of execution. And empowering our teams to deliver instead.
This means resisting the urge to fix everything, micromanage, or rely on old habits as an individual contributor. And instead, putting our energy into making sure that:
The team has clarity, alignment, and focus.
Communication flows efficiently without unnecessary overhead.
Team members feel supported in their growth and decision-making.
The shift is uncomfortable but necessary.
And it starts with redefining success… no longer from our own output or outcome but from the team’s collective achievement, and always in alignment with our personal values and the leader we want to be.
See you next week for part 2!
📌 Coaching Bulletin Board:
📌 I’ll be going live with Linda Kugblenu and Inciteful App. For the people who always felt like they had to work twice as hard to be seen, decode unspoken workplace norms, or navigate career challenges without a playbook, this webinar is for you.
Click here to register.
📌 1:1 Coaching for the new Product Leaders, UX Leaders, and other new functional leaders in tech. I’d love to help you define your strategies to set yourself and your team up for success. Book a free call and let’s discuss how we can work together.
📌
and I are launching a program for the ambitious professionals in tech who struggle with networking and building relationships in the industry. Apply to join.📌 Magical Audios is giving away a free guided self-hypnosis for healing burnout. Click here to start listening.
If you got to this part of this newsletter, thanks for staying with me until the end. And thank you for sharing with me topics that you’d like for me to share my thoughts, feelings, and violent reactions on.
❤️
Kax
PS. Here are more ways for us to connect: