I see a product manager’s job as very similar to the role of a founder of a company. If you think about it, what does a founder do? They undertake tasks that no other employee in the company wants to or is assigned to do. They also bring people together, ensuring that the different functions of a company are running properly and have effective cross-collaboration and communication. They act as communicators, building what users want and making everything seem like a win — to both employees and customers. These are roles, I believe, a product manager has, just on a smaller scale. Product managers need to unite engineering and design teams, ensuring that whatever initiative they’re pushing aligns with engineering, design, and customer expectations, or they have to make it appear so if it doesn’t actually align. Both founders and product managers lead the development of products and must be great storytellers to get everyone on board and on the same page. On the negative side, both founders and product managers can experience imposter syndrome or insecurity since they both, in some sense, play facilitative roles with no visibly tangible output (engineering builds the product, design visualizes the product, marketing advertises the product, sales secure customers, etc.).
This brings me to the question I have for the author: You talk about how burnout and insecurity are related, and I was wondering if you could expand on that relationship and provide tips on how to avoid insecurity-caused burnout?
