Reactive Vs Strategic Product Leaders

Reacting at work is pretty normal.

You hear about a good idea? You consider whether you should take it forward.

Somebody is complaining about their work situation? You have a meeting or a call to see what we can do about it.

An email comes in? Drop everything and answer, or see what needs to be done about it.

So reacting is a very human thing to do, since it is what we normally do in our daily lives. But when it comes to work, making a habit of reacting and showing action can become a problem for an organization, and this is especially problematic if you do it as a product leader and your team follows suit.

Being strategic is not so easy. It requires forward thinking, planning, and following those plans.

A strategic product leader will face similar demands, but will know when to postpone them and make sure the teams stick to their plans.

A strategic product leader doesn't need to be rude, but will have to learn to say no, explain why, and, even more importantly, have a clear vision and strategy for the product, which will make clear to others what is important.

The catch-22

The majority of product leaders will agree that having a strategy and a vision, and KPIs or OKRs to track them, is critical. The reality is that most don't have them clearly articulated, they are not visible to their teams, and cannot be used to drive execution.

This means that product teams will be flooded with suggestions to create new features, and have no tools to prioritize properly.

On top of this, Agile and even AI with vibe coding have the promise of moving fast and reacting quickly to changes, so you can address customers' needs faster than ever before. Agile was not created to be just about reacting, but adapting, but the perception of many is that being Agile is that you can be changing non-stop.

I'm going to be blunt here: your customers' needs are not important unless they align with your goals. Otherwise, you will try to adapt your product to every single need, often conflicting, creating a Frankenstein product that will serve nobody.

Does your team need an intervention?

If you and your team are lost about priorities, reacting non-stop to different demands, you probably have no system to drive your decisions. I've built an Intervention Deck that will help you address those tough questions that product leaders face almost daily, and the intervention steps to solve them.

Check out the Product Strategy Intervention Deck.