Product Management in Practice

I found it interesting to read about how the product manager role might bring out one’s sense of insecurity. The product manager is responsible for the outcome of a product, and bad outcomes cause them to be insecure. It’s unavoidably part of the job to care about how others respond to your product, whether they be users, customers, or your boss. The manifestations of this insecurity in every bad product manager archetype the author brings up are quite predictable to me. These archetypes felt familiar to me, and I could think of comparisons from coworkers during internships or even students at school. Insecurity and the symptoms of it exist across many fields and positions aside from product management. I also enjoyed reading about what product managers are valued for. Feeling genuine trust from your teammates must be an amazingly validating experience. Having an active role in facilitating the environment and dynamics of a team is to have a role in positively shaping your teammates’ work experiences and how they think about their jobs. One question I have is to do with how to be thorough without pestering your teammates and maintaining a sense of trust with them. I see that being incredibly thorough and detail-oriented is an important trait for a product manager, especially when it comes to instructing, assessing, and tracking the progress of others’ work. The nature of the role feels similar to that of a supervisor or boss, so how does one take on these responsibilities and, at the same time, cultivate a sense of togetherness and trust with their team? After all, one’s teammates might also be feeling the effects of insecurity regarding their contributions. How would a good product manager validate their team members’ effort while communicating to them that it is not meeting expectations?