A Senior PM reached out to me recently to talk about moving from individual contributor (IC) to Manager, and while I’ve given talks and webinars about this, I wanted to share more thoughts on the topic for you all.

Contrary to popular belief, moving to a leadership position is not necessarily a step “up”—it’s a step in a different direction.

Today, I want to explore why you should become a Manager, or Product Leader, and what matters.

The difference between IC and Manager

First, let’s get the definitions clear.

When I talk about being a Product Leader, I mean line manager or people manager of other Product Managers. You are responsible for hiring, firing, performance reviews, promotions, and more. You can do everything else the IC does (many manager positions do, as of late), but if you aren’t doing any of that line manager work, you’re just an IC.

Don’t let your employer be ambiguous about this.

As an IC, your value comes from your direct contributions. You’re the one getting deep in the work, identifying business opportunities, wrangling conflicting opinions, and delivering tangible outcomes.

Your expertise, technical skills, and ability to execute are what make you shine. And you get to feel really close to the tangible product changes you ship. It wouldn’t happen without you, and seeing your work out in the wild can be incredibly satisfying.

As a Manager, your value shifts. You succeed through others. Your job becomes enabling your team to do their best work, removing obstacles, and developing talent.

Your impact is measured by your team’s success, but you also aren’t as close to the actual work as before.

Understanding career ladders

As I said earlier, leadership isn’t the only ‘step up’ above Senior PM. It’s a different path altogether.

My colleague Susan Videira Lopes put together this handy graphic which was adapted from a talk she gave at Mind the Product in 2023.

Her writeup includes a guide for organisations to follow when establishing IC and Manager ladders. That’s related, but different from what I want to talk with you about.

What matters as a Product Leader

Excelling as a Product Leader demands mastering four critical areas. These essential competencies will determine your success:

Vision-driven thinking

The Product Leader establishes vision at the team or org level. They are also helping develop vision-thinking for their team, often providing feedback and coaching for their PMs on this important skill.

They connect day-to-day work to long-term company objectives and market opportunities. Effective vision-driven leaders can translate abstract concepts into achievable outcomes that inspire and guide their teams.

They must also be able to adapt their vision based on new information while maintaining consistency in their core direction.

Strategic mindset

Product leaders have to balance short-term pressures with long-term value creation, often making difficult trade-offs between competing priorities.

They have to rise above the day to day distractions. A product leaders’ prioritisation focus has less to do with the product and roadmap, and more to do with how effective teams are operating.

Like vision, an effective Product Leader needs to help hone and refine the strategic thinking of their team.

Communication

This is what the Product Leader spends the most time doing: facilitating communication amongst different leaders and teams, often mediating complex conversations where conflicting priorities emerge.

Product leaders need to excel at resolving cross-functional disputes that ICs couldn’t address, finding common ground between engineering timelines, design principles, and business objectives.

Effective communicators in leadership positions also excel at active listening, ensuring they truly understand different perspectives before guiding the group toward resolution.

Empathy

A great PM understands users and stakeholders. A great Product Leader understands users, stakeholders, and their team members—on an even deeper level.

Empathy drives better product decisions, I expect no one would disagree with that. It also enables more effective team management, as empathetic leaders can recognise when team members are struggling and provide appropriate support.

This emotional intelligence becomes crucial when navigating difficult conversations, whether about performance, priorities, or organisational changes.

Why you should become a Product Leader

The most compelling reason is the profound satisfaction that comes from developing others.

As a Product Leader, your greatest impact comes through coaching, mentoring, and helping other PMs flourish.

There’s something uniquely rewarding about watching your team members achieve success and knowing you played a pivotal role in their growth.

Another reason is if you thrive on collaboration and communication.

Product leaders spend the majority of their time facilitating important conversations, building alignment across teams, and resolving complex organisational challenges.

If you excel at bringing diverse perspectives together and find energy in these interactions, leadership will likely be fulfilling for you.

Product leadership also offers the opportunity to shape organisational direction on a broader scale. Your influence extends beyond individual features to how entire teams and products evolve.

This wider impact allows you to craft meaningful change that aligns with your values and vision for what great products should be.

Finally, product leadership provides a different kind of professional growth.

While there are certainly other paths to advance your career and compensation, the unique skills you develop as a leader—strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and organisational navigation—will serve you throughout your career journey, regardless of your future roles.

It’s not a one-way door

Fortunately, switching between IC and Manager isn’t an irreversible decision. Even if you decide to try it out, you can switch back.

Many successful product leaders have moved between IC and management roles throughout their careers. Every transition creates an opportunity for building valuable perspective.

This was true for my career as well. Here’s what it looked like the last 20 years:

2005-2006: IC

2006-2007: Manager

2007-2010: IC

2010-2015: Manager

2015-2016: IC

2016-2019: Manager

2020-2022: IC

2022-2023: Manager

If you try management and discover it’s not for you, returning to an IC role isn’t failure—it’s self-awareness and growth.

Your career will involve lots of experiments. Trying management can be one of them, just remember the risks you’re taking on when you become responsible for someone else’s career (and life). I had to let someone go once who had just had a baby, and they had to leave the country within a few weeks because they couldn’t quickly find a new job.

That’s the kind of life-altering impact you might have as a manager.

When to consider the job market

The Product Management jobs landscape continues to evolve. While companies are placing greater value on “player-coaches” who can both execute and guide others, these trends vary—and career decisions take shape over many years.

So, although the current shift is towards the “Super IC”, nobody can accurately predict what the job market for Product Managers will look like in 5 or 10 years, or much longer.

If you want, though, you can see the latest trends by job level in my most recent jobs report.

What to ask yourself

Before pursuing a different path, ask yourself these questions:

Your honest answers will reveal more than any generic career advice could.

Until next time,

James

P.S. Reply to this email with your biggest question about the IC vs Manager transition. I read every response and may feature your question in an upcoming issue!