How Product Managers Can Be More Intentional With Their Leadership

What are some of the qualities that make a great product manager? Perhaps attributes like honesty, integrity, collaboration, and organization come to mind. When it comes to product management roles, though, all of these qualities are built upon intentional leadership. 

Product managers are responsible for overseeing the planning, developing, and launching of products. Bringing a product vision to life involves several cross-functional teams. Executing product plans and following the product strategy, depending on the type of product being launched, requires cooperation. In such a collaborative environment, the team leader must manage each product roadmap with intention.  

Why Leadership Is Important as a Product Manager

Leading with intention means that you consistently refer to the product vision throughout the development process, listening to your teams and responding in a manner that keeps your organization’s core values and product goals in mind. Intentional leaders always have their eyes on the bigger picture, which includes how each decision made about a new product line will ultimately affect the user experience. 

Learning to lead with intention will not only sharpen your product management skills but will also benefit your career as a whole. Here are three ways good leadership can help you and your professional development: 

• Teams respect an intentional leader who listens to their ideas and concerns, considering how customer feedback affects a product line as well.
• Superiors trust leaders on their team who manage day-to-day responsibilities with intention and grace because it allows them to focus on business development. 
• Leading with intention is a valuable way to set yourself up for success in your industry, as it involves taking opportunities for improvement and advancement in your product management role.

How to Be An Intentional Leader

Product managers are in charge of overseeing a product line’s journey from conception and planning to its launch in the product market. If this is your role, you likely understand how intricately each team works together to bring a product vision to reality. By leading with intention, you will be able to follow each product management roadmap through the lens of each team to understand how all of the pieces come together. 

Mastering your processes doesn’t stop with a product roadmap. Here are four tips on how to be an intentional leader as a product manager in your organization:  

Know Your Values 

Consider your values as an individual, as an employee, and as a manager. These values should all align with a key vision for your business, acting as anchors to hold on to when questions, concerns, and changes come up during a new product launch. For example, at Gocious, our values represent who we are and how we help product teams succeed across all kinds of industries. We value transparency, agility, and collaboration, which are reinforced in every aspect by the tools we create and the methodologies we promote. 

Knowing your values as a leader can help you approach each scenario with an adaptable mindset to support your teams so every new product meets your organization’s standards when it hits the market.    

Set Meaningful Goals

If you aren’t sure how to go about becoming a more intentional leader, setting meaningful goals that will support your teams, your business, and your professional skills is a good way to shift into an intentional mindset. Here are some examples of development-focused goals: 

• Be an active listener. Listen to understand rather than to respond. 
• Always offer constructive feedback that team members can learn from rather than criticism that will dampen their spirit.
• Adopt an adaptive mindset so you can be open to change and growth. 
• Build up your emotional intelligence by practicing self-awareness, social awareness, and emotional regulation. 
• Practice time management and delegation to become a more efficient leader. 

These are just a handful of meaningful goals that you might consider incorporating into your work environment to help you become a more intentional leader.    

Invest in Professional Development  

There are so many online and in-person resources for professional development in leadership roles. Some popular topics that leadership and management courses cover include empathetic leadership, inclusivity training, how to be agile, and how to think like a leader. Whether you prefer to take an online course from anywhere or attend in-person lectures at your local continuing education facility, there are many avenues for your professional development. If you’re not sure where to look, here is a handy list of 10 beneficial leadership and management courses for inspiration.   

Learn From Subject Matter Experts   

The best business leaders are always learning and growing. One of the best ways to keep your mind fresh and stay up-to-date on the latest industry trends in leadership roles is to find literature, podcasts, and videos on the topic. Sometimes hearing another leader’s perspective can give you valuable insight into how to handle certain situations with intention, even if their experience is in a different industry. Intentional leadership is universal.

Here are five leadership podcasts to check out thanks to a thoughtfully curated list on Audible: 

• The Daily Stoic
• Ask a CEO
• The Career Change Coach
• Connect Inspire Create
• Culture and Leadership Connections 

If podcasts aren’t your thing, there are plenty of books written by champions for intentional leadership. Here are a few leadership books that will give you tools, resources, and advice that you can apply to your role as an intentional product manager: 

• “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us” by Seth Godin talks about how leaders can make a difference in the digital age. 
• “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman talks about how we make choices in our personal and professional lives.
• “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” by Simon Sinek talks about the importance of the WHY behind your business. 
• “Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.” by Brené Brown, which talks about the value of leading with empathy and connection. 

Being an intentional leader is all about keeping an open mind, listening to understand, and adapting to unforeseen changes that happen along the way so you never lose sight of your vision and goals. 

Invest in Collaborative Product Management Tools

Intentional leadership is an integral piece of the puzzle for product management teams that are dedicated to building their product portfolios. Working with several different personalities across engineering teams, product teams, and other team members requires a collaborative approach that can be supported with innovative roadmapping tools. Watch our webinar on Tools for Modern Product Management to learn more. 

Find out more about the capabilities of Gocious by booking a demo with us. We’ll meet with you to show you around the program, get to know your needs, and discuss software features and how you can make them work for you and your company.