Product Managers as CEOs? Here’s my take.
In 2012 Ben Horowitz, a venture capitalist, wrote that a good product manager is a CEO of the product. This has become a debated phrase with a lot of opinions on either side. I decided to do some of my own research to decide how true or not true it is.
What does a CEO do?
Before we can decide if a product manager is anything like a CEO, we need to define the CEO job as well as the PM job.
A CEO’s job description
Let’s start with the CEO role. A CEO is the ultimate decision-maker and because of that they are responsible for the success (usually read profitability) or failure of the organization and all of its products. They provide the high-level vision, mission, and strategy for the organization as well as the leadership and hiring (and firing) to make that vision a reality. They help decide operational policies and set the company culture. They understand the market and help identify potential problems and opportunities for the company that would influence its value. This could include new product opportunities, acquisitions, partnerships, or even selling the company. They monitor and report on fiscal activities and control the company budget. They work with the executive board to determine long and short-term goals, delegate responsibilities as needed, and they act as the spokesperson for the company to the board of directors, Wall Street (if its a public company), as well as the broader market.
A product manager’s job description
A product manager is responsible for setting the product vision and translating the business strategy into a product strategy and roadmap. They understand the competitive landscape, the market, and the customers. From this understanding, they identify opportunities for the product. This could include gaps in the current product experience that could be filled with new features or partnerships. They collaborate with designers and engineers to define and execute on projects and with sales, marketing and support to get products and features launched. They track key product metrics like revenue and customer adoption and satisfaction to know if they’re being successful and also meeting company goals. Since they don’t manage anyone on the cross-functional team, they lead through inspiration, communication, and influence. They report to senior management to ensure continual alignment of goals.
Is a product manager a CEO of their product?
If I were just to base my opinion on the job descriptions, I would say that a product manager is not like a CEO. While some aspects of a product manager’s job can seem like a mini-CEO, they lack the authority to control and impact all of the things that make a product successful. They don’t have control of the budget or staffing. They rarely see the full financial picture of the product. A good product manager can raise concerns and they may be asked for input from decision-makers, but ultimately they are just an influencer. If they don’t have the right people or budget to release important work, they don’t have the power to change it.
But perhaps Ben Horowitz wasn’t referring to job descriptions when he wrote that product managers were the CEO of the product. Perhaps he was trying to say that product managers should have similar attributes and mindsets of CEOs.
What are attributes of a successful CEO?
CEOs can be seen as driven, but also self-centered and greedy. I doubt that was what Ben Horowitz was recommending so I went looking for what makes a great CEO. Luckily ghSmart’s CEO Genome Project spent 10 years looking into just this. An HBR article written by Elena Lytkina Botelho, Kim Rosenkoetter Powell, Stephen Kincaid, and Dina Wang shares their learnings and 4 key attributes that successful CEOs have.
- Decide with speed and conviction — Great CEOs can make decisions faster and with greater conviction, despite ambiguity or incomplete information. They avoid being the bottleneck and know that usually even a wrong decision is better than indecision.
- Engage for impact — Effective CEOs understand stakeholders’ motivations, needs, and possible concerns. They give everyone a voice, but not necessarily a vote. They don’t avoid conflict, but stay calm and composed under pressure. Because of that, they have the ability to drive alignment around value and redirect detractors into positive contributors.
- Adapt proactively — Successful CEOs are always keeping in mind the short-, medium-, and long-term aspects of the business. They seek out diverse sources of information, even if it doesn’t seem to be relevant to the business because that can lead to strategic moves. They know that mistakes are opportunities to learn and grow.
- Delivering reliably — CEOs that follow through on their commitments, set realistic expectations and clear accountability, and establish strong management systems become a steady and predictable leader for the organization. They are able to surround themselves with a strong team. This helps them to make quick course corrections when a wrong decision has been made.
These attributes feel very relevant to my experience as a product manager. A PM is tasked with reducing the risk before investing the time and resources to building features and products, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of speed. A great product manager has a deep understanding of the customer and business so they can have the confidence to make decisions quickly.
Product managers are a hub in the company. They understand that stakeholders aren’t just prospects and customers, but also sales, customer success, and support. A great product manager can listen to the needs of all of the groups and then get alignment on the product vision and roadmap.
A great product manager isn’t just thinking about this quarter and next, but is looking at broader trends and brainstorming where the product can go in the future. They can see both the details of the trees in the proverbial forest as well as the 30,000 foot view of the land surrounding the forest. But most importantly, a great product manager builds trust within the organization by delivering awesome products reliably.
In referencing the phrase, Marty Cagan stated, “I want [product managers] to be ambitious, and hungry, and I want them to be confident enough in their abilities to take responsibility for decisions, and I want them to understand they need to worry about all aspects of the business, but I also believe strongly in the importance of humility for a product manager, and I need to make sure they’re not thinking the title gives them anything beyond a shot at earning the respect of their team.”
In this framing, I believe that product managers can be (and should strive to be) like a successful CEO.
Input from someone who has held both roles
To finish off my research, I asked Jeff Lyman, Chief Product Officer at Weave and until recently a temporary co-CEO of Weave, what he thought of the phrase. He said that being a great product manager isn’t about being in charge, but rather in understanding the impact of your product to the larger organization. Top product managers know the number of support calls their product is driving. They understand not only customer pain points, but also business pain points. They understand the underlying costs of their product as well as its value so they can help guide sales on how to sell it as well as how it should be billed. They understand the competitive market and how their product fits into the mix. And based on all of this knowledge, they can determine what projects will have the biggest impact and then empower their team to do the work.
A great PM can talk through the outcomes of work as clearly as they can talk through the details of a project. They can map projects back to the financial benefit of doing them and communicate that to senior leadership. They understand that being purpose-driven doesn’t mean you can’t also be financially-focused.
My final take
While the job descriptions can look pretty different, the attributes and mindset of great CEOs are something that product managers should work on adopting. Being customer and business focused, help make for even better product managers and hopefully better products. The level of investment and ownership required of a great PM is big and it’s a hard job, but one that can be very rewarding.
I won’t be adopting the mantra that a product manager is the CEO of the product, but I‘m going to work on adopting those 4 key CEO attributes and focus on business outcomes as much as I do customer satisfaction.
