Career progression in product follows a skills pyramid: ICs (market), Directors (people), VPs (strategy), and CPOs (business vision). To get promoted, you must demonstrate proficiency in the skills required for the next level before you officially have the title.

A product manager is ready for leadership not just by mastering their domain, but by demonstrating three key traits: understanding how all parts of the platform connect, being effective in customer-facing roles (sales, roadmap talks), and proactively building cross-team relationships.

The core job of a Product Manager is not writing specs or talking to press; it's a leadership role. Success means getting a product to market that wins. This requires influencing engineering, marketing, and sales without any formal authority, making it the ultimate training ground for real leadership.

In an organization still running in project mode, the 'Product Manager' title is misleading. The role is often relegated to organizing work and scheduling tasks for engineering. A true product model requires empowering these roles with the mandate, skills, and market access to make strategic decisions.

As you move up the product ladder, your strategic time horizon expands. ICs and Directors focus on quarters, VPs on the year, and CPOs must own the 3-5 year vision. Thinking long-term is a core CPO responsibility that no one else in the product organization will own.

Unlike PMs, directors make objective, portfolio-wide decisions, which may include defunding or shelving a product. A critical mental shift for aspiring directors is to stop tying personal and professional value to the success of one product and instead focus on the overall health of the business.

A fundamental shift from PM to Director is where you derive professional satisfaction. As a PM, joy often comes from shipping products and solving user problems. As a Director, your primary source of joy must come from seeing your team members succeed, grow, and have an impact.

Optimal product leadership structures separate the long-term, visionary role from the tactical, execution role. One person focuses on the big picture and selling the future ("the house"), while the other translates that chaos into immediate, actionable work ("fixing the walls").

While many individual contributor PMs thrive on being scrappy and avoiding rigid process, a director's effectiveness is measured by their ability to create scalable systems and consistent practices. Overcoming an "allergy to process" is a mandatory step in the transition to a leadership role.