What Makes a Great Product Manager

Photo by airfocus on Unsplash

“A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.” — Deep Nishar

If you’ve ever considered becoming a product manager, let me start by saying you’re in great company. From Kevin Systrom, formerly at Instagram, to Erin Teague at Google, there’s no shortage of great business leaders that were once product managers.

And as a product manager myself, I can tell you this isn’t by default, but rather by design. You see, to be a great product manager in any organization, you’ve also gotta be a great leader. Or as I like to call it, leading with C.L.A.S.S. (and I’m not talking about dapper suits and shoes here.)

In fact, what I’m talking about is the very thing that catapulted my career in product management. Sure, I went to an outstanding college and even got a Masters, but I wouldn’t have gotten this far if I didn’t possess the following five traits, which are defined by the acronym, C.L.A.S.S.

Curiosity

Leadership with Authority

Accountability

Self Starter

Self Awareness

Once you take a closer look at the skills that make up the acronym, you can easily spot individuals that would make great product managers even if they don’t…