Ever feel like your role is more about taking orders than leading your product strategy? A lot of the PMs I talk to feel the same way. 

You might find yourself constantly juggling conflicting stakeholder demands, sudden CEO mandates, or new regulations that just derail all your carefully laid plans. It’s not exactly inspiring, and it certainly doesn't feel like leadership.

But what if you could change that? 

In this article, you’ll discover three essential skills that’ll help you transition from taking orders to leading product strategy – whether you're an aspiring product leader or already guiding a team of product managers. We’ll also dive into practical approaches and insights to empower both you and your team to become the product leaders you’re meant to be.

Let’s get into it.

Essential skills for product leaders

First things first: what does it take for a product manager to become a stellar product leader? These are the three essential skills:

🤝 Relationship building

💬 Effectively communicating product strategy

⭐ The confidence to lead

If you lead a team of product managers, supporting them in developing these skills is crucial. This means honestly assessing your team’s skills and strengths – as well as your own–, leveraging your network to fill gaps, holding your team accountable, and providing them with opportunities to grow.

To lead, you need stakeholders to understand and support your strategy. Being a product leader: relationship building, effectively communicating product strategy, confidence. People managers: understand your team and yourself as a leader, hold accountable, find opportunities.

Let me walk you through each of these key skills and break down how you can help your team to cultivate them.

The power of relationship building in product management

Relationship building is paramount because even the most brilliant strategy won't succeed if your stakeholders don't trust you or aren't willing to listen. The foundation of trust rests on regular, transparent communication and consistency – doing what you say and saying what you do. This reliability is essential for any strong working relationship.

Beyond consistency, it’s vital to understand your stakeholders’ priorities and constraints. While you’re eager to share your product and your amazing strategy, taking the time to grasp their world will significantly increase your chances of gaining their support. This mutual understanding fosters a collaborative environment.

Steps to building strong relationships: regular, transparent communication; be consistent; understand stakeholders' priorities and constraints; offer to help; acknowledge and hopefully resolve disagreements.

Another key aspect is offering to help. This is a great way of proving that the relationship you’re trying to build isn't just transactional; it shows a genuine desire to partner. Even if you can’t directly help, the act of offering strengthens the relationship by proving you’re invested in their success, not just your own.

Finally, acknowledge and resolve disagreements. This is key to a long-term relationship based on mutual respect. 

Turning tension into alignment

Let me share an example. I was working on a project that involved four or five different systems. We’d have these big cross-functional calls – fifteen to twenty people – trying to design features that spanned across them all.

There was one stakeholder I kept clashing with over a particular feature. No matter how we approached it, we just couldn’t agree on how it should be designed.

After one particularly tense meeting, I reached out to her and said, “Hey, I feel like we keep butting heads. I’m probably missing something – can we talk it through?”

So, we sat down and hashed it out. That conversation changed everything. She explained her system supported multiple customer journeys and operated globally. Mine only supported one journey and was focused on the U.S. market. Suddenly, it made sense why we were coming at the problem so differently.