Perspectives on Product Leadership

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escalation, leadership, needs-driven, priorities, strategic-driven, strategy

Excellent article from Rich Mironov titled 7 Ways to Know That You Need a Head of Product.  Over the course of my career, I’ve seen each symptom and they can certainly be painful and frustrating to work through.  But the last paragraph brings the point home!

Like other functional specialties, product management needs leaders who recognize and reward great product work; who know how to hire/mentor/grow product folks; and who build executive-level support for doing the right things. Without seasoned product leaders, each individual product manager has to go it alone.

Check out the article for yourself … but here are a few additional favorite comments:

Anticipating the Unexpected, Preparing for the Worst

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ask right questions, character, collaboration, contingency planning, courage, integrity, leadership, learn from mistakes, risk management

A couple of good quotes caught my attention this morning.  The first has to do with the recent financial meltdown that led to the global economic crisis … the second with Captain Sully’s spectacular landing of the US Airbus on the Hudson river.  Very different scenarios with very different contexts.  Yet both speaking to role of leadership when it comes to risk management.

“… You can’t control people through policies, procedures and policing.  You can only do it through a strong risk management culture and absolute integrity in all leaders.”

Leadership on Trial, A Manifesto for Leadership Development

We have to have situational awareness–we have to be able to create a mental model of our reality. We have to be good risk mangers, be mindful, we have to understand our process so we can sensitize ourselves to risk. Bad outcomes are rarely the a result of a single failure but are instead the end result of a  chain of events, and when we sensitize ourselves to risk and are able to identify it proactively we can break the chain and have a good outcome.  

PODCAST: Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger On How To Thrive Under Extreme Pressure

A Product Leader’s Reading List

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books, Competency, derailment, digital economy, leadership, platform, servant leadership, why

I saw a post on LinkedIn about a new Product Leadership book coming out this summer, and it also referenced an article from the Mind the Product site about six essential books to read for Product Managers.  And that got me to thinking … what books would I recommend?  Not just about Product Management, but about Leadership in general?

Many have shaped my thinking over the years, but the top 5 most recent ones that come to mind.  Enjoy.

Richard Branson on Leadership

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leadership, richard branson, success

Whether or not you like him , there is no denying Richard Branson’s success as an entrepreneur, investor, business magnate, and philanthropist.  As a leader, he is a force to be reckoned with and somebody worth paying attention to.  Today’s post is a summary of 23 tips for success extracted from two books written he has written: “Like A Virgin” and “The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership”.

The H.E.A.R.T. of Leadership

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courage, expectations, heart, hunger, leadership, responsibility, servant leadership, vision, wisdom

I’ve pointed out in many instances … whether intentionally chosen, or inadvertently thrust upon them, Product Managers should be leaders. I just got reacquainted with a book I finished several years ago by Mark Miller, The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow.  What a wonderful characterization of not just leadership skills, but leadership character. It is an easy read, so I would recommend picking it up for yourself, but here is a summary of the main five points with some of my thoughts included.

CEO Conversations

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customer needs, failure, leadership, positioning, risks, strategy, vision

Several years ago, I researched the roles/responsibilities of a CEO and compared them to a couple of job descriptions for Product Management (director and/or VP level). It was an interesting exercise that confirmed some things in my mind about the context of a product manager as leader.

As such, I love coming across conversations like this one from Quora/Brad Silverberg about Microsoft’s leaders over the years, including Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, and Satya Nadella.

Causing Leadership

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causation, change, correlation, energy, execution, humility, leadership, learn, passion, servant leadership, vision, welch

One of the leaders I enjoy following is Jack Welch. More often than not, he and his wife Suzy offer insights into leadership few others have experienced. Over the years, there have been very few insights I felt wouldn’t serve me well in product management.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

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aristotle, change, leadership, self-awareness, stephen covey

A bit late in honoring David Bowie, but the title seemed appropriate this morning. Today I was catching up on an article by Bob Caporale in the AMA Playbook titled How Leaders Can Master Self-Awareness. Like the author, I too enjoy reading anything pertaining to leadership … so I can relate to his comment about attempting to encapsulate that magical set of skills, competencies, and behaviors that I can adopt into my psyche to make me a better leader.

He presents just such a list a bit further down in the article, followed by a corresponding list describing characteristics of leadership most of us would not seek to emulate.

Extreme Sports & Leadership … Not What I was Thinking

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courage, extreme sports, humility, integrity, leadership, mandela, servant leadership

Sometimes you stumble into learning opportunities (or reminders) when you least expect them. This past Sunday was one of those moments for me. What began as a normal morning of church service ended with a phenomenal conversation with Cheryl Bachelder, CEO of Popeyes.  If you are not familiar with the transformation that has taken place over the past ~10 years at Popeyes, let me summarize a few points about the environment when she took over:

• guest visits had been declining for years
• restaurant sales and profit trends were negative
• the company stock price had dropped from $34 in 2002 to $13
• the brand was stagnant
• relations between the company and its franchise owners were strained

Contemplating Myths …

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collaboration, leadership, mistakes, perfection, process, Product Management, setbacks, strategy, success, vision

If you read my ‘About’ tab on this blog, you will find a simple statement … “Whether intentionally chosen, or inadvertently thrust upon them, Product Managers should be leaders. This blog is a blending of Leadership and Product Management concepts.”

Interestingly over the recent weeks, I’ve gathered a couple of articles focused on the myths of each topic and thought it might be interesting to dig in a bit.  From a leadership perspective, the article is titled The Worst Leadership Myths And Their Realities.  From a product management perspective, its The Myths of Product Management.  Of course I recommend you spend the time to examine them yourselves, but here are a few tidbits I walked away with …