3 Most Important Traits of a Product Manager

Product leaders are often asked, what are the three most important traits that every successful product manager should possess. After coaching over 2,500 product managers, I have found most product leaders list the same core concepts, even if they word them differently.

The Three Traits or Skills of Great Product Managers

1. Communication

2. Curiosity

3. Data-Driven/Data-Informed

Now, I will dive into each one.

Communication

:imparting or exchanging of information or news

As a product manager, your ability to communicate effectively is absolutely crucial to your success. It's not just about speaking but also about listening, storytelling, and presenting to different audiences. In fact, I would argue that 80 to 90% of what a product manager does revolves around communication. That includes writing documents, presenting to executives, or having one-on-one conversations with team members and cross-functional (xfn) partners. As such, communication is the key to success for product managers.

Developing strong communication skills involves both verbal and written proficiency. It's about being able to articulate your ideas clearly and concisely. It's also about being able to connect with your team and stakeholders through storytelling. A PM must inspire with a compelling product story.

Before I dive into the importance of curiosity, I want to break down communication further. The following items constitute communication:

1. Writing Documents

2. Preparing Slides/Articles/Videos

3. Public Speaking

4. Listening

5. Body Language

6. Negotiating between parties

I want to take a quick moment to address listening and body language as part of communication. They are less obvious forms of communication for some people. Yes, communication is also about saying nothing and just listening. (Think about the last time an executive pulled out their cell phone while you were speaking; it told you they were not listening and did not care.)

But you need to hear what someone says with their words and body language. Some of the biggest disagreements I have seen at tech companies boil down to parties not listening to one another.

When coaching executive presence, I have addressed the importance of body language. How we hold ourselves conveys a lot to our listeners. Think about it: crossed arms (even if just because someone is cold) make someone seem more closed to new ideas, or if someone isn’t naturally big on smiling, they may have a reputation for being more critical, even when they are not.

Curiosity

:a strong desire to know or learn something.

Curiosity is the driving force behind problem-solving and innovation. (I have also heard the term inquisitive used, which is just another way of saying persistent curiosity). As a product manager, being curious allows you to understand the customer's problem and the functioning of your team. Curiosity is what drives us to ask, what is that unsolved user problem? Why does one person love our product and another hate it? It's about filling in those white spaces and diving deep into the issues at hand.

It's about asking questions like, "Why are customers suffering?" or "Why do we have disagreements with partner teams?" Curiosity enables you to uncover new opportunities and ultimately create better products.

I added curiosity to my required list after I had a product manager on my team who was more program manager than product manager. They struggled to handle the ambiguity inherent in the product manager role. They longed for a day when a prioritized list of problems was handed to them. Or maybe an unprioritized list but some space that was already defined.

On the flipside, on the same team, one of the strongest product managers was constantly asking: Why do we struggle to get more adoption? What is the next big bet? How do I learn what the users want and what the engineers know?

Curiosity is empathy. If you are not curious, you probably aren’t very empathetic.

Data-Driven

:determined by the collection or analysis of data.

Lastly, being data-driven is a trait that sets great product managers apart from the good ones. Data is the backbone of informed decision-making. Understanding how to leverage data and metrics in storytelling and business planning becomes second nature to the best product managers. Being data-driven (data-informed, etc.) enables one to uncover valuable insights that are crucial for effective product management.

Being data-driven means using data to make informed decisions rather than relying solely on intuition or personal opinion. It ensures that the choices you make align with customer interests and ultimately lead to successful outcomes.

It isn’t just about crunching numbers or data at scale, it is about leveraging data to support or question your hypothesis. One of the best books for using data is How to Measure Anything from Douglas Hubbard. Some of my favorite passages in this book address getting just 3 to 5 data points, as something is better than nothing.

Anything can be measured. If a thing can be observed in any way at all, it lends itself to some type of measurement method. No matter how “fuzzy” the measurement is, it’s still a measurement if it tells you more than you knew before. And those very things most likely to be seen as immeasurable are, virtually always, solved by relatively simple measurement methods.”

– Doublas Hubbard

Remember, being data-driven works best when complimented by strong communication and curiosity.

…

Why Not These Traits?

I have asked the vast majority of my clients this question, and I often hear:

• empathy

• storytelling

• trust

• execution

• technical

• collaboration

• conflict resolution

• strategic

• adaptable

I will address why I don’t include these in my top 3:

Empathy

:the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

In my opinion, communication + curiousity covers empathy. I feel that empathy is table stakes for product managers. Staing it doesn’t level up the field. If you can’t empathize, you aren’t even a mediocre product manager. Truly empathetic product managers score high on communication, curiosity, and data-driven. Good communicators are empathetic.

Storytelling

:the activity of telling or writing stories

I will never forget the time I presented my take on the three most important traits of a product manager, and the person interviewing me started arguing that it was all about storytelling. I put storytelling under the heading of communication. If all you are doing is storytelling and not listening or modifying your storytelling to your audience, you will fail. Yes, storytelling is key, but is is part and parcel of communication.

Trust

:firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone

Yes, it is true, product managers need to build trust to be successful. Again, all of the skills/attributes in my top three build that trust. If you don’t communication, if you can’t fill in the white spaces or dive into new problems and if you can’t use data to build your case, you will not build trust.

Execution

:the putting into effect of a plan, order, or course of action.

This is table stakes. But I have also seen great project managers or program managers who are great at execution but are not good product managers. And the more senior you are, execution is less important as is inspiring others to execute. I

Technical

:relating to a particular subject, art, or craft, or its techniques.

Some of the best product managers I have encountered were actually English majors. You don’t need to be super technical to connect the dots between a users problem and the solution. And no engineer I have ever worked with wants a product manager to dictate technical solutions. I believe curiosity covers this one because if you are curious, you will learn enough about the technology to work with your engineering team and speak their language. I would even go so far as to say that too many teams over index on technical background on super technical products where what the team really needs is someone who doesn’t understand the technology deeply and so they ask good questions (I know many people who would argue with me on this point but I will stick with it as I have seen it proven over and over again.)

Collaboration

:the action of working with someone to produce or create something.

Anyone in the product realm must be collaborative to be successful. And proper communication is collaborative. A product manager doesn’t build the product, they inspire others to create and build. This is another trait I list under table stakes for anyone in the field of product.

Conflict Resolution

:the process of ending a dispute and reaching an agreement that satisfies all parties involved

Again, conflict resolution is a form of communication. A good communicator will diffuse most conflicts. If you remember that listening and observation are part of communication, you can see quickly how strong communication reduces the number of conflicts that require resolution.

Adaptable

:able to adjust to new conditions.

One of my favorite product managers likes to say that good product managers fill in the white spaces. This is particularly apt in startups and big companies alike. A product manager needs to adapt what they do to the teams they are working with. If you just look at my Google experiences, where I effectively worked with 4 distinct teams you can see the need for adaptability in product management.

Each one of the teams I worked on needed something different from me. It was my job to change what I focused on based on what they needed, not what I wanted to do. On one team, my job was to help a junior PM communicate more effectively. On another team, I had to build and advocate for a strategic pivot. On a third product, my primary job was building trust across the team and reducing cross-functional conflict.

Strategic

:relating to the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests and the means of achieving them.

Yes, the more senior you are, the more important it is to be strategic. By which I mean, to set a plan for what will be done and what will not be done. You need to think ahead, but most importantly, you need to communicate constantly. You need to communicate your initial plans. Then you need to communicate what was learned from early tests and failures and modify your strategic plan.

In Conclusion

As we conclude, I invite you to reflect on your own journey as a product manager. Consider the role communication, curiosity, and data-driven decision-making have played in your success thus far. How have these traits shaped your approach to product management? What steps can you take to further enhance these skills and, in turn, elevate your performance as a product manager?

Remember, being a successful product manager goes beyond technical expertise. It requires a combination of traits that set you apart, allowing you to navigate the complex landscape of product management. Constantly focus on improving your communication skills, don’t lose your natural curiosity and use data to help inform and shape your strategic decision-making.