✍🏼 From Senior PM to Lead PM - My Three Big Mistakes

When I was promoted to the Lead Product Manager role, the first emotion which I felt was excitement (also happiness) which comes with every promotion, followed by panic. I had been a great product manager, consistently received excellent reviews, and collaborated well with everyone, but with this new responsibility, I wasn’t sure what I was in for.

As a Senior Product Manager, I had always felt the role of my lead seemed so close to what I was doing, they would create PRDs, like I do, they would create roadmaps like I do, they would prioritize, like I do, the only difference which seemed minor at the time was I would do it for my own Product and they would do it at the Business Level considering all the company divisions. I had significantly underestimated the amount of work my Leads did because it wasn’t directly visible to me, but as I was transitioning in my role of Lead Product Manager, I was about to get a taste of it, and exploring all these changes lead me to make a lot of mistakes.

So here I am sharing the top three mistakes which I feel I made when I transitioned into the Lead Product Manager role.

Mistake 1: Not letting go of old habits

Someone who continuously works on the most critical, complex problems and executes the solutions well makes a really great product manager in the team, but makes for a lousy Lead Product Manager.

When I was promoted to the Lead PM role the most challenging part of the role was realising that I need to let go of the responsibilities which actually got me here. Letting go of control and delegating tasks to my team was crucial. It helped build trust and provided them with opportunities to learn and grow. It was difficult at first, as I would feel “Some things are just not meant to be outsourced” but I had to keep reminding myself, that my role as a lead is not limited to doing quality work myself but also building a healthy team to deliver quality at scale.

Mistake 2: Not anticipating the importance of connecting everything with “Revenue”

As I started working more closely with the Leadership team (which consisted of the C-Levels), after every update I would share there was always one lingering question “How does it lead to Revenue?” which I was really not prepared for because I was so engrossed in the north star metric and user experience side of the project that I missed out on considering the metric which Business Leadership cares about the most. (My mind wandered as randomly as the graph below)

As a Lead, it became important for me to figure out the strategic levers which connect the north star metrics with the revenue, from daily decisions to bigger picture everything we do in product I had to ensure a clear value is being targeted & delivered for the business in “dollar amount”. In past 6 months, the business mindset has shifted to “profitability” as a result the pressure to ensure there is no waste and everything delivers value is crucial. The transparency and communication around the same was important. This realization took longer because, during my role transition, I focused only on my responsibilities within the product team and didn’t fully align myself with the company's goals and the role I needed to play to achieve them.

Mistake 3: Not Maintaining Accessibility and Approachability as a Lead

With more responsibilities, my availability for certain regular meetings decreased, although I was joining only the critical meetings, I always ensured I am carving out some time out for people to be able to reach me for any kind of guidance or help. My mistake was not communicating this clearly or regularly enough, when I became a Lead, a lot of assumptions were made by people around me, and the biggest one was “She will be busy or difficult to reach” because of their own past experiences with Leads or maybe because I was late in getting back to some messages. The worst part of this assumption was people didn’t even try to get in touch with me as they were expecting me to be like “Nope, Busy.”

As someone who always worked closely with engineering, design, sales, retention teams etc I was surprised when no one came to me for anything for a couple of weeks, and soon I realized why. After this, I started being more proactive, I would check-in with all the teams from time to time, reiterate that I am here if they need me, ensure my slack status & calendar reflects the exact status “Focus Time”, “In a Meeting” or “Available for Meetings” so that people don’t have to wonder if it’s good time to message. All these little things slowly started making everyone more comfortable to reach me getting rid of all the assumptions which were made.

Common factor in all three mistakes

If I look at all these three mistakes, the common underlying theme is “Trust”, I trusting my team, Leadership trusting me and My team trusting me.

As I grow as a Product Manager I realize that most important thing I will ever build is trust, which includes trust with everyone, including people I work with (directly & indirectly) and my end users. This trust is what will take me a long way in building great products and even greater teams.