# Skills PMs need to build  ## Metadata - Author: [[Lenny Rachitsky]] - Full Title: Skills PMs need to build - Category: #articles - Summary: Companies look for strong product managers who excel in leadership, execution, strategy, and delivering impact consistently. These PMs inspire teams, set clear priorities, communicate effectively, and take ownership of their product areas. They also mentor and lead others, build trust, and drive successful launches with minimal intervention. - URL: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/jobs-of-product-manager ## Highlights - 1. Leadership Surprisingly, though not so surprisingly (since PMs are generally de facto leaders of their team), leadership ended up being the single most cited PM skill, highlighted by 85% of the companies (all but three). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x1jq7h3t9vdrr3nmx936s)) - 2. Execution Execution (aka, getting sh*t done) turned out to be the second most important PM attribute, highlighted by 75% of companies. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x1vm7f6a5fg3drdjdn6df)) - 3. Strategy About 75% of companies also highlight strategy as a critical PM attribute, which when combined with the previous two jobs (leadership and execution) basically tells you what companies need PMs for most. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x21z3dsr5f1jy6zser5ke)) - 4. Communication PMs do their job through one core skill: communication—by talking, emailing, writing, messaging, and presenting. Unsurprisingly, the fourth most frequently mentioned PM attribute, emphasized by over 60% of companies, is communication. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x26j6hz583j2jq3zd7xh6)) - 5. Deliver impact All the other skills in this list enable the thing that matters most in the end: delivering impact. Impact is the *output* of all the inputs in this list. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x2behgxxjshdt61rnpa47)) - 6. Leverage customer insights and data About 50% of the companies highlight the job of leveraging data and user research. It’s interesting that this only came up in half of companies. My take is that the remaining companies assume this is going to happen anyway. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x2gcxr137xb4kr1bygs9d)) - 7. Planning and goal setting Similarly, about 50% of companies highlighted planning and goal setting as a core PM job. You could argue this is a subset of execution, but the fact that most companies broke this out into its own job tells you how important it is. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x2nqy46vvb31d2y671mge)) - 8. Collaboration Collaboration, the skill of getting work done with others, is highlighted about 40% of the time. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x2spbnsqkqn1tmsmanvzt)) - 9. Vision Surprisingly, considering how much value founders and investors put on vision, only 40% of these companies include vision as an essential skill of PMs. This doesn’t necessarily mean companies don’t want their product managers spending time developing a vision for the product—it probably just tells us that in the stack rank of PM skills, this falls short of the most essential set of skills. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x2xgzj1pmctdyqqvv3n1x)) - 10. Ownership And finally, about a fourth of companies highlight ownership as a core PM skill, even over other skills such as technical depth, decision making, and mindset. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x30naka1gt41b7je79wv6)) - What separates junior PMs from senior PMs While analyzing these career ladders, I also found some consistent patterns in what companies look for as a PM levels-up. In order to move up the ladder of seniority, I’d focus on the following five areas: 1. Increase your scope Junior PMs focus on a feature, senior PMs focus on multiple products. • "Feature” —> “Multiple Features” —> “Product " —> “Multiple Products" —> “Product Line” —> “Department” —> “Industry” • “Feature” —> “Solution” —> “Customer segment” —> “Market Segment” • “For specific use cases” —> “For a product” —> “Across products” —> “Across groups” **2. Get more proactive** Junior PMs participate in a project given to them. Senior PMs seek out problems and rally people to solve them. • “Actively contributes​” —> “Steers team explorations” —> “Facilitates concept explorations” • “Adapts​ to existing team shipping rhythm” —> “Establishes and drives​ a consistent shipping cadence” —> “Motivates multiple teams to find creative ways to continue to ship frequently even for complex, high-dependency projects” • “Works with manager to identify what needs to be done” —> “Independently identifies what needs to be done” —> “Consistently challenges team to accomplish more than they think they can” • “Contributes to team’s roadmap” —> “Owner of the team’s roadmap” —> “The reviewer of teams’ roadmaps” • “With coaching, creates a bold vision for their area of ownership” —> “Inspires the company by creating bold, game-changing ideas and delivering them” —> “Demonstrates ability to consistently invent and build multiple innovations delivered across products and org boundaries” 3. Deliver impact consistently • “Can demonstrate meaningful impact” —> “Consistently​ delivers meaningful impact” • “Demonstrated track record of delivering customer and enterprise value” —> “Demonstrated track record of delivering step function improvement to the business and customers” —> “Impact the strategic decisions of the company through developed subject matter expertise” • “Seeks to understand product area” —> “Responsible for shaping product area strategy” —> “Responsible for shaping the most ambiguous & impactful strategies across teams” 4. Build trust in order to become more autonomous • “Requires oversight from a PM II or Senior PM” —> “Requires oversight from a Senior PM” —> “Executes against single-team projects with a high level of complexity or ambiguity with minimal intervention” • “Requires guidance” —> “Often needs guidance” —> “Without day-to-day management” • “Drives successful launches with moderate involvement from manager or peers” —> “Owns a customer problem and delivery and stewardship of product feature” —> “Owns delivery and stewardship of a feature set which has an irrefutable impact on the company’s business opportunity” 5. Mentor and lead • “Begin mentoring APMs and newer team members” —> “Demonstrated mentorship and development of other product managers” —> “Mentors and teaches fellow product managers, product leaders, and leaders across the company” —> “Helps newer GPMs become better managers” —> “People leadership skills are so strong that Directors+ are able to learn from you” • “Seeks feedback and reviews of one-pagers and PRDs from peer, teammates, and mentors” —> “Takes on a mentee” —> “Mentors product managers within the organization” • “Does not directly manage anyone” —> “Optionally serves as a trusted APM mentor” —> “Optionally manages a small number of PMs” —> “Usually manages several PMs, but not strictly required if this person is running fairly complex programs. Influence extends beyond own team; their product judgment is frequently sought out by teams outside of product area.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hv1x3tt7b3s9sg8g363b4fm9))