What is it  really   like to be a senior Product Leader?

Product Management is a uniquely modern job. Compared to traditional trades that have been around for decades, Product Management has only taken its current shape in the last 15-20 years. 

My college didn’t have a single Product Management course, let alone a dedicated major. Over the course of my decade-plus career leading product teams at companies like Spotify, Netflix and early stage startups, I pieced together my own education from blog posts, books, online courses and interviews from expert product leaders who came before me.

While there’s a ton of great knowledge about the skills of the discipline, there’s less content about the day-to-day experience of Product Leaders: the challenging interpersonal dynamics, frustrating cross-functional stalemates, and emotional ups-and-downs that define the role.

In our quest to become true customer experts about Product Leaders, the team at HEARD wanted to go beyond understanding functional tasks and goals to gain a deeper understanding of the social and emotional layers of Product. We partnered with the Product Leadership Summit to field a research study called Off the Record: An Unfiltered Look into Product Leadership.

Imagine sitting down for drinks with a few fellow Product Leaders. What kind of stories would be shared, what complaints would be aired, and what advice would be swapped? That's the spirit we aimed to capture in Off the Record. 

Using HEARD, we interviewed 200 senior Product Leaders in the PLS community and presented a preview of the results at the live at the summit last month. Now, we're excited to share the full findings in this final report.

Methodology

First, we developed a discussion guide to touch on the following topics:

1. Cross-functional Collaboration: Explore how Product Leaders navigate internal politics, align stakeholders with competing interests, and drive collaboration across teams.
2. Product Strategy: Unpack the decision-making process behind building a winning product strategy. 
3. Career Growth: Discuss how Product Leaders navigate their career, the roadblocks they faced, and the advice they wish they’d received earlier.

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Using HEARD, we built an interview study and trained our moderator to understand the nuances of the Product Manager role.

From there, 200 Product Leaders participated in  5-7 minute interviews where they were taken through a series of discussion topics.  In this open-ended, conversational interview, the AI adapted the questions it asked in real time  to collect the deepest insights possible.

Finally, using our proprietary insights algorithm, we extracted the key themes for each discussion topic and generated a report, the highlights of which we're sharing here.

Participants

Here's a look at who participated in the interview (n=204):

How Product Leaders influence others

Product Managers live and die by the concept of "influence without authority." We have to compel people towards action without always having the authority to call the shots. The study revealed how Product Leaders use two of the most important tools for influence: data (logic) and empathy (connection). 

When Product leaders are being pushed to build things they don't believe in, they tend to first lean into empathy to understand the perspective of their peers, and then data to try and push back.

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Conversely, when Product leaders are trying to push an idea they really believe in but are facing resistance, they first lean on data to tell a compelling story and then rely on empathy to understand push-back.

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Why do we lead with data when trying to influence others, but respond with empathy when others are trying to influence us? Perhaps because as product people, we’re taught to lead with the strength of our ideas by assembling bullet proof business cases. But we might forget that on the other side of that presentation is a person who wants to be understood, not persuaded.

It's a reminder to not underestimate how powerful connecting rather than convincing can be towards influencing our cross-functional partners.

We want our design, engineering and user research partners to understand the "why"

When discussing internal collaboration, one of the most prominent themes that emerged was the need for our "first team" of designers, engineers and user researchers to better understand customer and market context. 

Design: Stop operating in a silo

Product Leaders expressed frustration when design teams operate in silos without a deep understanding of the customers they’re building for or the feasibility of the solution they're designing.

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HEARD: Fill in the blank: “My Product organization would be more successful if my Design team partners _____”

Director of Product:...worked more closely with engineering and customer insights to create seamless, user-centered solutions.

HEARD: What obstacles do you face in improving design and engineering team collaboration?

Director of Product: The biggest obstacles are often misaligned priorities and communication gaps between the teams. Design might focus on the user experience while engineering is more concerned with feasibility and timelines, which can lead to friction.

To solve this, Product Leaders have adopted a few best practices:

‍Create spaces for designers & developers to discuss, not just execute: “I try to get designers and developers in the same room to talk through the designs together and to get designers to show designs early in the process. This approach allows all sides to iterate in real time and more directly get feedback on what is capable.” — Director of Product

‍Make spending time with customers a KPI: “The design team has many competing priorities, so I make spending time with users a KPI they are measured on.” — CPO / CXO

Engineering: Understand the customer

Product Leaders described the litany of issues that arise when technical teams create solutions without a true understanding of customer problems.

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HEARD: Fill in the blank: “My product organization would be more successful if my engineering team partners _____”

CPO / CXO:... were more curious about and invested in the success of the customers using the products they build and maintain.

HEARD: How has this impacted your product outcomes?

CPO / CXO: Engineers play an outsized role in defining and selecting the work they do each sprint. Low-value, low-impact work gets prioritized and unmet customer needs are deferred.

Here are some of the best practices around solving engineering collaboration that emerged from the study:

Gamify product strategy & customer insights: “I am focused on building consistent storytelling across the company to connect market insights to our strategy and vision. I create polls to check in with how the team understands and connects their work to the broader context.” — Director of Product

Frame things in outcomes for the customer, not tasks: “We have to ensure that we share the outcomes we want our customers to achieve and not just what feature we need to deliver in a particular timeline.” — VP of Product

User Research: Frame insights with partner teams in mind

Product Leaders value research but struggle threading customer insights throughout the development process. We want our User Research partners to do more to translate findings into terms that design, engineering and marketing can easily use.

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HEARD: Fill in the blank: “My Product organization would be more successful if my User Research team partners _____”

VP of Product:…ensures that customer insights are not only gathered but fully integrated into product strategy, development, and decision-making processes

HEARD: What challenges do you face in integrating customer insights?

VP of Product: Teams like engineering or sales might be focused on speed, budget, or hitting immediate targets, which can make it hard to get them to see the value of customer insights that might take longer to show results. Sometimes, it’s a matter of being overwhelmed by data—people need to see the clear connection between insights and measurable outcomes. And then there’s the challenge of communication: translating research findings into something that resonates with different teams isn’t always easy.

Here's what emerged as best practices:

Connect User Research to “knowledgeable” internal teams early: “My User Research team need to work more closely with Sales in the beginning of product design. Sales would be able to point out quickly if a product will succeed or fail in the field. We launched two products that didn’t involve sales until late in the product development stage and both products no longer exist.” — VP of Product

‍Frame insights in simple ways that design and engineering will actually use: “My Product organization uses empathy maps and user personas to humanize the data and maintain a user-centered perspective.” — Director of Product

What Product Leaders wish they had known sooner

Product Leaders realize that the most important product we'll ever work on is ourselves. We take personal development seriously and are constantly striving to get better. When we asked interview participants to both reflect on what they've learned so far in their career and where they hope to go next, we found a fascinating gap between the two. 

When asked what they wished they would have understood earlier about being a great Product Leader, participants talked about managing up and navigating company politics. 

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HEARD: What’s something you wished you would have understood earlier about what it takes to be a good Product Leader?

Director of Product: Navigating company politics

HEARD: Why do you think navigating company politics is so crucial for a Product Leader?

Director of Product: People who you think are working with you, might actually be working against you behind the scenes.

HEARD: Can you share an example of a time when this happened to you?

Director of Product: This has happened countless times. When working one-on-one with another executive, we agree on a path, and then they do something different afterwards.

But when we asked "What is the next skill you're focused on building?" more participants cited “hard” skills like AI or product strategy than “soft” skills like communication or relationship building.

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Given how aware we are about the importance of influence, why aren't more of us striving to improve skills around negotiation, persuasion, and relationship building? 

My take: think of the great product leaders that are respected in our community. Most of them are praised for their vision, market insight and execution. Fewer are lauded for being great internal connectors or compassionate listeners. It’s not a surprise that many of us believe that the key to the next promotion or job is to mold ourselves in the image of the giants in our field by accumulating as many “hard” skills as possible.

Product Leaders are confident about their ability to build using AI, but are facing implementation obstacles.

Everyone will be an “AI” Product Leader in the coming years, whether or not it’s officially in their title. Most interview participants feel confident in their ability to lead teams in the age of AI.

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However, participants were split on whether or not they had yet incorporated AI into their product strategy.

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Most participants described using AI to improve internal efficiencies and fewer reported building customer-facing features due to internal misalignment on which use cases to focus on.

HEARD: Has your Product organization successfully incorporated AI into your strategy yet?‍

Director of PM: Somewhat. Alignment on use cases and eng resources has been challenging.

PLS AI Interviewer: Why has aligning on use cases been particularly challenging for your team?

Director of PM: Often teams are looking or listening to market buzz and using that to dictate investments in particular use cases vs fully identifying a actual problem and comparing that to our company’s ability to deliver a good model

Here are some of the best practices that emerged around incorporating AI into product strategy:

Create tight MVPs for AI features: “To avoid roadmap decision paralysis, we had to keep it simple. We picked a feature and set a super tight deadline of 2.5 weeks.” — Senior PM

‍Prioritize explainability with non-technical stakeholders: “Ensuring that AI models are transparent and understandable is crucial for gaining trust and buy-in from various stakeholders. Teams need to understand how AI reaches its conclusions, especially when it's being used to make critical decisions. We emphasize transparency from the start by ensuring that all teams, including non-technical stakeholders, understand the key inputs and outputs of the models.” — VP of Product

Internal chaos is holding Product Leaders back in their careers

One of the biggest career roadblocks for PMs is a chaotic organizational landscape—shifting priorities, internal politics, and frequent changes to team structure. In a highly cross-functional job, Product Leaders are often caught in the crossfire of these dynamics.

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HEARD: Makes sense. Are there any roadblocks or challenges holding you back in your career as a product leader?

Director of Product: I am fairly certain there is no next step for me in my current role and company. I think what might hold me back if I wanted to make a move in my career is that my current company does not involve me and my team in the revenue generation process as much as they should

HEARD: Got it. How do you think being more involved in the revenue generation process would impact your team's performance?

Director of Product: We would create things that had specific revenue targets. We would have a more clear understanding of our work and the impact it has on our company revenue goals

HEARD: I see. How do you currently measure the impact of your team's work?

Director of Product: Usage and adoption of features. Improvements in artifacts like PRDs. Feedback from stakeholders

Unfortunately, few if any best practices emerged on how to overcome these internal obstacles, many of which are due to factors outside of our control. Instead, here are a few thought starters that we might use to think about strategies:

1. Even when company strategy is constantly shifting, how can we push our leaders to clearly define remit, resources and goals so that we can effectively execute?
2. Are we effectively making those same definitions clear for our team? Think about what your boss isn’t doing for you and make sure that you’re doing it for your team.
3. Given the likelihood of a chaotic internal environment, how can we encourage our teams to build real relationships across the business so that when org lines change, they’re well-equipped to work with whomever their new partners are?

How Product leaders define impact in their career

Product Leaders are ruthlessly focused on results -- shipping new features, driving performance metrics, and proving value. We wanted to understand how participants measured success throughout their career. The group of Product Leaders we interviewed seemed to be finding tremendous success with the products they're shipping.

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But when we asked people what they were most proud of in their career, the most popular themes that emerged was the impact they had on the people on their teams.

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HEARD: What are you most proud of in your career as a Product Leader?

CPO / CXO: Definitely the teams that I've built.

HEARD: What steps did you take to build these teams?

CPO / CXO: Recognizing the value that each person brings, understanding their skill set, listening to their goals, and supporting them in their work to grow in the necessary direction both for the business and themselves

HEARD: Great approach! How do you balance individual goals with business needs?

CPO / CXO: I try to find the places they overlap, and, if not, design experiences outside of the core work to support the individual goals

How can we develop strong future product leaders? Let’s look into how people described how their product mentors helped them:

A few of the best practices that emerged:

Model management not micromanagement: “My COO helped me grow the most as a Product Leader by showing how to balance hard work and determination with a supportive and positive environment. They offered guidance without micromanaging. They encouraged open communication, celebrated small wins, and gave constructive feedback that felt like coaching rather than criticism." — VP of Product

Give people permission to believe in themselves: “I had a boss believe I could lead not only the product development process but also the team doing the work. Her confidence in me that I could do the job made me believe it too." — CPO / CXO

Push people beyond their comfort zone: “They helped me by pushing me out of my comfort zone, then providing constructive feedback before I was able to fail too hard. Their constructive feedback helped me understand how they would do things, areas where a developer might not understand, asking questions where there wasn't enough clarity. As a result I am much more methodical and think things through from more perspectives, look for more potential user errors, think through more scenarios, etc." — VP of Product

Provide honest and direct feedback: “The person that helped me grow the most gave me honest and direct feedback with specific ways to improve. They told me to listen more and talk less, empower the team to make more decisions after you set the vision and goals together. As a result, I’ve stepped back to more of a mentor coach leader rather than solutioning everything for the team.” — CPO / CXO

Big Takeaway: Product is a People Job

Off the Record is a rich, in-depth look at the experience of Product Leaders. We could write pages on pages on each of these topics. If there's one takeaway that stood out to me, it's  the realization that Product is a People job.

Yes, it's a strategy job. It's a data job and an operations job. But perhaps, more than we would like to admit it's a people job that requires us to constantly be in deep connection with others. We have to know how to go fast and go slow; how to relentlessly execute with speed but also slow down to create bridges and moats for people to get on board. 

When Product Leaders get together, we often nerd out on things like strategy, UI/UX, business models and AI. But perhaps we should be swapping "people strategies": How do you listen without bias and make stakeholders feel heard? How do you become genuinely curious about the experiences of everyone around you -- not just your customers, but also your cross-functional partners? More than learning a new tool or strategy framework, this could be the ultimate key to success.

You can check out the full set of insights from the study here and here. I’d love to hear your feedback, questions and ideas for future studies here on LinkedIn.

Part II: The Four Types of Product Leaders

Product Leaders said it’s important to distill customer insights into simple, easy to understand frameworks, and we listened! In Part II, we’ll present four unique Product Leader Personas that we synthesized based on these interviews. The key highlights for each persona include their leadership style, strengths, and areas for development. Sign up below to get notified when we publish Part II: The Four Product Leader Personas!