Managing Product Managers

Managing product managers is different from managing other functions. PMs are generalists who must influence without authority, navigate ambiguity daily, and make decisions with incomplete information. They are often independent-minded people who chose product management precisely because it offers autonomy and variety. Managing them well requires understanding what makes them tick and creating conditions for them to thrive.

This chapter is about the craft of managing PMs. It covers how to earn their trust, develop their capabilities, evaluate their performance, and build a team where the whole exceeds the sum of its parts. In an AI-augmented world, these fundamentals matter more than ever, even as the specific skills and workflows you are developing in your team evolve rapidly.

Winning Trust

Put yourself in the shoes of your direct reports. They had their working lives well established. They had a boss, a team, a sense of safety. Now you have joined as their new leader. You cannot blame them for feeling anxious. Who are you? Are you going to change everything? Will they keep their roles? Will you make them work like crazy? Will they enjoy working with you or dread it?

Trust is not given automatically with a title. It must be earned. And it rests on three pillars: competence, character, and connection. Miss any one of them, and trust will not fully form.

Competence

Your team needs to believe you know what you are doing. For a Director of Product, competence has several dimensions.

Technical competence means understanding the work of product management deeply. You do not need to be the best PM on your team, but you need enough expertise to recognize good work, diagnose problems, and provide useful guidance. If a PM brings you a prioritization challenge or a stakeholder conflict, you should be able to help them think through it. Your experience should be an asset they can draw on.

Subject matter expertise means understanding the domain your products operate in. If your product is a fintech app, you need to understand the intricacies of financial services: regulation, risk, customer psychology around money. If it is a ride-hailing app, you need to understand marketplace dynamics, driver economics, and urban transportation. You cannot lead effectively in a domain you do not understand.

Operational competence is the ability to get things done, both yourself and through others. You might recognize a problem clearly but not know how to fix it. You might need a plan but struggle to design a course of action. Operational competence comes from experience solving similar problems, the creativity to develop new approaches, and the wisdom to know who to ask for help when you are stuck.

Organizational competence is knowing how to help your team succeed within the larger company. A company is a living organism that constantly changes and adapts. Your team must navigate those changes while continuing to deliver value. You demonstrate organizational competence when you secure resources your team needs, protect them from unnecessary distractions, ensure their work is visible and valued, and help them build relationships across the organization. When you do this well, your team has more influence and earns more respect.

In the AI age, competence includes a new dimension: AI fluency. Your team needs to see that you understand how AI tools can augment their work. You do not need to be an expert prompter, but you should be conversant in what is possible and curious about what is emerging. Leaders who dismiss AI as hype will lose credibility with PMs who are using these tools daily.

Character

Competence earns respect. Character earns loyalty. Your team watches how you behave, especially under pressure, and draws conclusions about who you really are.

Energy and passion are contagious. As the leader, your energy level sets the tone for the team. If you are excited about the mission, your team will absorb that excitement. If you are going through the motions, they will notice. This does not mean being artificially enthusiastic. It means genuinely caring about the work and letting that show.

Courage means making hard calls and having difficult conversations. Leaders regularly face situations where the right thing to do is uncomfortable: giving critical feedback, pushing back on executives, admitting mistakes, making unpopular decisions. Your team watches to see if you have the courage to do what is right or if you take the easy path.

Emotional stability is essential. Mood swings are the enemy of trust. Every strong emotion you display is amplified through the team. If you are stressed, they become stressed. If you are angry, they become fearful. This does not mean suppressing emotions entirely. It means processing them appropriately and not subjecting your team to your unfiltered reactions.

Reliability means walking the talk. If you say you will do something, do it. If you make a commitment, honor it. If you set an expectation, meet it yourself before asking others to. Nothing destroys trust faster than a leader whose words and actions do not align.

Integrity means being honest even when it is costly. It means admitting what you do not know, acknowledging mistakes, giving credit where it is due, and never throwing your team under the bus to protect yourself.

Fairness means treating all team members with equal respect and holding everyone to consistent standards. Favoritism poisons team dynamics. Even the perception of unfairness creates resentment that undermines collaboration.

Team-first orientation means putting the team's success above your own advancement. Your team will sense whether you see them as instruments for your career or as people you are genuinely committed to developing. The best leaders find their satisfaction in their team's growth and achievements.

Connection

Competence and character are necessary but not sufficient. Your team also needs to feel personally connected to you.

Care about their future. Take genuine interest in where they want to go in their careers. Understand their aspirations. Help them grow toward their goals, even when that growth might eventually take them elsewhere.

Care about their present. Pay attention to their wellbeing. Notice when they are struggling. Consider their circumstances when making decisions that affect them. They are whole people with lives outside work.

Show genuine interest in who they are. Learn about their backgrounds, their interests, their families. Understand what motivates them. Know their dreams and their fears. This cannot be faked. Either you are genuinely curious about the people on your team or you are not.

Give them your time. Listen more than you speak. Be present in conversations rather than mentally elsewhere. Time is the most honest signal of what you value. When you consistently make time for your people, they know they matter.

Practice empathy. Seek to understand their perspective without judging. When they make mistakes or struggle, try to see the situation through their eyes before reacting.

Trust them with real responsibility. Delegate meaningful work and empower them to make decisions. Micromanagement signals distrust. Autonomy signals confidence in their capabilities.

Developing Product Managers

One of your most important responsibilities is developing the PMs on your team. Andy Grove, the legendary CEO of Intel, called training the highest-leverage activity a manager can do. I believe this deeply.

Development is not just about sending people to conferences or providing learning budgets, though those help. It is about the ongoing work of helping each person grow through their daily work.

Understanding Individual Needs

Each PM on your team has different strengths, weaknesses, and development needs. Some may be strong strategically but struggle with execution. Others may be excellent with engineers but ineffective with executives. Some may need to develop more analytical rigor. Others may need to become better storytellers.

Your first job is diagnosis. Through observation, conversation, and feedback from others, build a clear picture of where each person stands and what they most need to develop.

The Coaching Relationship

Effective development happens primarily through coaching, not training. Coaching means helping PMs work through real challenges in ways that build their capabilities.

When a PM comes to you with a problem, resist the urge to simply provide the answer. Instead, ask questions that help them think through the issue themselves. What have they tried? What options are they considering? What are the tradeoffs? What would they recommend?

This takes more time than just telling them what to do. But it builds their judgment and problem-solving capability rather than creating dependence on you.

Provide feedback frequently, not just in formal reviews. When you observe something that could be improved, share it soon while context is fresh. Be specific about what you observed and why it matters. Offer concrete suggestions for improvement.

Also provide positive feedback when you see good work. People need to know what they are doing well, not just where they need to improve. Catch them doing things right.

Developing AI Fluency

In the current environment, one of the most important capabilities to develop in your PMs is AI fluency. This means helping them understand what AI tools can do, developing their ability to use these tools effectively, and building their judgment about when to use AI and when human work is more appropriate.

Create opportunities for experimentation. Encourage PMs to try AI tools for different parts of their workflow: research synthesis, PRD drafting, competitive analysis, user interview analysis. Have them share what they learn with each other.

Model AI fluency yourself. Let your team see you using AI tools in your own work. Share your prompts and approaches. Discuss what works and what does not.

But also help them understand limitations. AI can produce impressive-looking output that is subtly wrong. Developing critical evaluation skills is just as important as developing prompting skills.

Stretch Assignments

People grow most when they are challenged beyond their current capabilities. Look for opportunities to give PMs stretch assignments that push them into new territory.

This might mean giving a PM responsibility for a more complex product, assigning them to lead a cross-functional initiative, or asking them to present to senior executives. The key is finding challenges that are difficult but achievable with effort and support.

Provide appropriate scaffolding. Do not throw people into the deep end without support. Check in frequently. Offer guidance when needed. Create safety for them to struggle and learn.

Building T-Shaped Skills

Strong PMs are T-shaped: deep expertise in product management combined with breadth across adjacent disciplines. Encourage your PMs to develop understanding of engineering, design, data science, marketing, and other functions they work with.

This breadth helps them collaborate more effectively, anticipate issues, and make better tradeoffs. It also makes them more valuable as they advance in their careers.

Evaluating Performance

Performance evaluation is one of your most important responsibilities. Done well, it drives growth and ensures the team maintains high standards. Done poorly, it creates confusion, resentment, and stagnation.

What Good Looks Like

Before you can evaluate performance, you need clarity on what good performance looks like. For PMs, this typically includes several dimensions:

Product outcomes. Is the PM's product succeeding? Are users adopting it? Is it achieving business goals? Outcomes are not entirely within a PM's control, but they matter.

Strategic thinking. Does the PM understand the market, customers, and competitive landscape? Do they make sound decisions about where to focus?

Execution. Does the PM ship? Do they hit commitments? Do they manage stakeholders effectively? Do they remove obstacles for their teams?

Collaboration. Does the PM work well with engineering, design, and other functions? Do they build strong relationships across the organization?

Leadership. Does the PM inspire and motivate their team? Do they develop the people around them? Do they handle conflict constructively?

Growth. Is the PM developing their capabilities over time? Are they learning from mistakes? Are they expanding their impact?

Ongoing Feedback vs. Formal Reviews

Formal performance reviews have their place, but they should never contain surprises. If a PM is struggling, they should know it well before any formal review. If they are excelling, they should hear that regularly.

Make feedback part of your regular interactions. After important meetings or deliverables, share observations. In one-on-ones, discuss what is going well and what could be better.

Formal reviews then become summaries and synthesis rather than revelations. They are opportunities to step back and look at patterns, set goals, and discuss career development.

Calibration

Evaluating performance fairly requires calibration. Work with your peers to ensure that standards are consistent across the organization. A "meets expectations" rating should mean the same thing on your team as on others.

Calibration also helps you identify your own biases. We all have tendencies to over or undervalue certain qualities. Getting input from others helps correct for this.

Addressing Performance Issues

When a PM is not meeting expectations, address it directly. Be clear about the gap between current performance and what is required. Be specific about what needs to change and by when.

Provide support for improvement. Identify resources, adjust responsibilities if needed, and increase coaching. Give the person a genuine chance to succeed.

But also be willing to make hard decisions. If someone is not able to meet the bar after genuine support and clear feedback, it is not fair to them or the team to let the situation persist indefinitely. Exiting someone from a role they are not succeeding in, done with respect and support, is sometimes the kindest option for everyone.

Building a High-Performing Team

Individual PM performance matters, but team performance matters more. Your job is to build a team where people work together effectively and the collective output exceeds what individuals could achieve alone.

Team Composition

Great teams have complementary skills and perspectives. If everyone thinks the same way, you will have blind spots. Seek diversity in backgrounds, experiences, and thinking styles.

Balance experience levels. Senior PMs provide expertise and mentorship. Junior PMs bring fresh perspectives and energy. The right mix depends on your context, but most teams benefit from having both.

Clarity of Roles

Ensure everyone understands their responsibilities and how they relate to others on the team. Ambiguity about who owns what creates conflict and dropped balls.

This does not mean rigid boundaries. PMs should help each other and collaborate across products. But when it is unclear who is responsible for a decision or outcome, problems follow.

Shared Practices

High-performing teams develop shared practices that create consistency and efficiency. This might include how you run planning processes, how you write PRDs, how you conduct user research, how you work with engineering.

In an AI-augmented environment, shared practices around AI tools are particularly valuable. Create prompt libraries that team members can use and improve. Develop common workflows for AI-assisted research, writing, and analysis. Share what works and what does not.

Psychological Safety

Teams perform best when members feel safe to take risks, ask questions, and admit mistakes. Psychological safety does not mean avoiding conflict or lowering standards. It means creating an environment where people can be candid without fear of punishment.

Model this yourself. Admit your own mistakes openly. Ask questions when you do not understand. Respond to bad news with curiosity rather than blame. Thank people for raising concerns.

Team Rituals

Rituals create connection and shared identity. This might include how you start the week, how you celebrate wins, how you learn from failures, how you onboard new team members.

I have found that regular team meetings focused on learning, not just status, are particularly valuable. Have team members share challenges they faced and how they addressed them. Review user research together. Discuss interesting approaches or tools. This builds collective capability and strengthens team bonds.

Healthy Conflict

Good teams disagree. They debate priorities, challenge each other's assumptions, and push back on ideas that do not hold up. This kind of conflict, focused on ideas rather than personalities, leads to better decisions.

Your role is to ensure conflict remains productive. Intervene when disagreements become personal. Model how to disagree respectfully. Ensure all voices are heard, not just the loudest ones.

The Product Director's Unique Challenges

Managing PMs has some unique challenges compared to managing other functions.

Influence Without Authority

PMs succeed by influencing people they do not control: engineers, designers, stakeholders across the company. You cannot evaluate a PM solely on what they deliver through their direct work. You must evaluate their effectiveness at mobilizing others.

This also means your management approach must respect this reality. You cannot simply direct PMs to achieve outcomes that depend on others' cooperation. You must help them develop the influence and relationships they need.

High Ambiguity

Product management involves constant ambiguity. The right answer is rarely clear. PMs must make decisions with incomplete information and live with uncertainty about whether they made the right call.

Some people thrive in ambiguity. Others struggle. Part of your job is helping PMs develop comfort with uncertainty while still driving toward clarity when possible.

Emotional Labor

PMs absorb frustration from all directions. Engineers are frustrated by changing requirements. Stakeholders are frustrated by timelines. Customers are frustrated by missing features. PMs often serve as the buffer, absorbing negativity so their teams can focus.

Recognize this emotional labor and support your PMs through it. Give them space to vent. Help them develop coping strategies. Watch for burnout.

Career Path Ambiguity

The PM career path is less clear than in engineering or other functions. What does senior PM mean? What about Principal PM or Group PM? Different companies define these differently.

Provide clarity for your team about what advancement looks like and what is required. Help them understand the path ahead even if it is not as well-defined as in other functions.

Key Takeaways

Managing PMs well is essential to your success as a Product Director. Your team's performance is your performance.

Trust is the foundation, built on competence, character, and connection. Earn respect through your expertise. Earn loyalty through your integrity. Earn commitment through genuine care.

Development is your highest-leverage activity. Help each PM grow through coaching, feedback, and stretch assignments. In today's environment, developing AI fluency is particularly important.

Build a team that is greater than the sum of its parts. Create clarity, psychological safety, and shared practices. Enable healthy conflict. Celebrate together.

And remember: the PMs you develop will go on to lead teams of their own. The investment you make in them multiplies through everyone they will manage in the future. Few things you do will have more lasting impact.