Characteristics of Exceptional Product Managers
Updated: Aug 14
Exceptional PMs understand they are a work in progress, constantly evolving. If you're deeply passionate about being a product manager (PM), you've likely pondered this crucial question: what exactly makes exceptional product managers who excel in people management and product leadership? The answer: they build both people and products.
Great PMs prioritize their team members, investing in their development and recognizing their contributions first. They foster a community around their cross-functional and partner teams, motivating individuals to realize their organization’s product vision. Great PMs think ahead, planning for future segments and creating products that are invaluable to customers and their companies, driving client adoption and revenue growth.
Exceptional product managers exhibit leadership in both their professional and personal lives, motivating others and setting a course for future success. They develop emotional intelligence, becoming adaptable, resilient, and open to feedback. They are efficient listeners and accessible to change.
In my many years of experience in product management, I’ve learned that outstanding product managers thrive because they epitomize the attributes necessary to build people, excellent products, and, thus, excellent businesses. They exemplify the following traits:
Customer-obsessed
Over-communicate strategy and vision
Partner and influence
Both strategic and tactical
Utilize data and intuition to make decisions
Let’s dive into each one in more detail.
Customer-Obsessed
Exceptional product managers are customer-obsessed. They focus on enhancing the customer experience from the customer’s perspective, embedding a customer-centric approach into their product management culture. For great PMs and their cross-functional teams, the customer is at the core of everything they build.
An example with a smaller organization involved inviting local clients to our office for lunch, touring our headquarters, and introducing them to various teams. This interaction allowed us to understand why they chose us, what problem they were trying to solve, how they used our platform, and what features they needed. These sessions transformed and aligned our teams, fostering empathy and a deeper understanding of customer pain points and struggling moments.
Over-Communicate Strategy and Vision
Great PMs employ a customer-first approach, solving customer problems by providing value. This mindset drives their communication with clear objectives. They over-communicate strategy and vision to ensure their cross-functional partners understand customers' struggling moments, product stories, communication needs, and strategic goals more effectively.
After completing the research, I conduct a “communication tour” in five acts:
Initial Working Session: Discuss product, pain points, customer and business value, market distinction, and KPIs.
Technical Discussion: Review the experience draft with tech leads to address technical concerns.
Team Leads Meeting: Present the experience to customer-facing and non-customer-facing team leads, gather feedback, and iterate.
Cross-Functional Workshop: Present to partners in risk, compliance, legal, policy, and architecture, addressing any concerns.
Leadership Share-Out: Collaborate with research teams for usability studies and learning plans.
Remarkable PMs must over-communicate strategy and vision to align, transform, and inspire their organization.
Partner and Influence
Exceptional PMs recognize the importance of partnering and influencing. They lead cross-functional teams from development to launch, forming deep-rooted connections with partner teams. They are the link between customer requests and market introductions, evangelizing the product roadmap and vision, networking, soliciting feedback, and effectively communicating updates.
At the beginning of the year, I align our product strategy with cross-functional team leads, influencing their roadmaps to avoid surprises. This process includes regular engagement, feedback solicitation, and fostering relationships through networking activities, such as pre-COVID coffee meetings and virtual lunches.
Strategic and Tactical
Exceptional PMs balance strategic and tactical decision-making. They ensure strategy takes precedence and provide a roadmap for resolving tactical-level queries during development.
My rule is to prioritize strategy, which guides tactical decisions during product execution. I handle tactical specifics by having a solidified product strategy agreed upon by all teams involved. Without a strategic plan, resolving tactical-level details becomes challenging.
Utilize Data Intuition to Make Decisions
Exceptional PMs utilize both data and intuition. They make challenging decisions by balancing data with their intuition, developed from deep-rooted experience in their field. Data provides clarity, but intuition fills in the gaps, enabling quick, informed decisions.
When joining a new organization, I seek data and historical context about the product to inform my decisions. This balance of data and intuition is crucial for effective product management.
Final thoughts
Exceptional product managers succeed by building people and products. They develop meaningful relationships with their teams and leadership, creating driven individuals who work together to fulfill the product vision. These leaders think divergently, avoid complacency, and foresee each part of their product's success story as their responsibility.
In today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape, being adaptable and resilient has never been more critical. The rise of AI-driven tools and remote work environments highlights the importance of continuous learning and emotional intelligence in navigating these changes. Exceptional PMs embrace these advancements, ensuring their teams and products remain at the forefront of innovation.
