5 Traits of inspiring Product Managers

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what motivates people and why certain leaders are inspiring and others less so. Here’s my take on what makes for an inspiring Product Manager:

1. A proactive listener

They really listen. Often more than they talk. Not only that, they enjoy listening — whether that’s understanding a client’s day to day, delving deeper into those flickers of emotion that can be that first hint of a market problem or reaching out for advice from architects or developers.

2. Collaborative

They seek out opinions and encourage debate because they know those nuggets of insight lead to better decisions. They involve people early, celebrate success and appreciate how motivating that can be. They also get a buzz from those Eureka moments when a small group ideation session sparks an idea no one would have conceived themselves.

3. Humble

They get things wrong and they don’t mind admitting it. In some circumstances they even relish it. For example, they appreciate that testing ideas or assumptions (whether their own or someone else’s) is part of their design process. To them proving a design doesn’t work before they built it is a success (not a failure) because they’ve saved precious development hours. Whats more, they’ll happily let go of an idea if the evidence points in a different direction.

4. Crisp communicator

Their clarity of thought means words are chosen carefully and used sparingly. They know that clear, succinct messaging has far more chance of cutting through the noise — internally and externally.

5. Connected

They go out of their way to build relationships with other functions. That helps the PM empathise, build influence and position themselves at the centre of everything happening on their product. In turn they can anticipate negative reactions and leverage their influence to course correct other functions’ missteps early.