What quality matters most for effective product leadership?

Tulsee Doshi

Sr. Director & Product Lead, GenAI & Gemini Models · Google

Taste

Tulsee Doshi says taste is now really important because when you can build anything easily, building something great is a unique value add, and a good PM brings the insight that unlocks a great experience.

Josh Elman

Director of Product Management · Apple

Storytelling

Josh Elman says the art of product management is crafting a vision into a story that carries a team to build the right thing, calling it the most important role a product manager has.

Sam Julien

Director of Product · Copilotkit

Empathy

Sam Julien says user and customer empathy matter most, because thinking through the problem before setting an agent to build avoids having to iterate back and forth later.

The answer starts at 25:51.

Jeff Chow

Chief Product and Technology Officer · Miro

Decision Making

Jeff Chow says the craft of product leadership is decision making, because everything a product leader does, from setting pace with incomplete information to breaking problems down and communicating, is a decision, and that is the X factor toward impact.

Marty Cagan

Partner · Silicon Valley Product Group

Broad business knowledge

Marty Cagan says product managers should first get great at product by learning about areas like sales, marketing, services, support, compliance and legal, because executives won't trust and empower a product team without someone who understands these issues.

Jori Bell

VP Core Experience · Hampton

Growth Mindset

Jori Bell says a growth mindset is probably the most important quality, because everything is changing and people fail when they can't adapt and embrace new tools rather than sticking to how they've always done it.

Jim Rosen

Chief Product Officer · Mortgage Cadence

Understanding customers

Jim Rosen says understanding customers is key to great product leadership, because it means having a relationship beyond tickets and emails and knowing what customers are trying to do so you can meet them where they're going.

Vanessa Davis

Chief Product Officer · LegalOn Technologies

Accountability

Vanessa Davis says her job as a product leader is to give people autonomy and then hold them accountable, since autonomy means being responsible for the outcome and for what they said they would accomplish.