Paid Article: The Evolution of Product Leadership- From Building Products to Building Teams

Master the four leadership pillars that transform how you drive innovation, measure success, and multiply your influence—regardless of your career path

Your greatest impact as a product leader comes not from the products you build, but the teams you empower to build them.

Sometime in 2014, I realized I wasn’t just building products anymore-I was building teams. This epiphany hit while leading product development for Africa’s largest mobile carrier in Johannesburg, South Africa. As we expanded our suite of value-added services across the continent, what started as hands-on product management evolved into something profound and far more impactful.

The Transition No One Prepares You For

Looking around, most product management education focuses almost exclusively on the craft- product sense, execution, prioritization, customer obsession, commercial mastery, stakeholder management, communication, etc. These skills are essential early in our careers, but as I moved from managing one product to overseeing multiple product lines across African, Middle Eastern, and European markets, I began to see the gaps in this approach.

The cognitive load of maintaining deep product knowledge across multiple domains while making dozens of critical decisions daily wasn’t just unsustainable—it was suboptimal for the organization. The moment of clarity came during a leadership summit when I recognized that my greatest contribution wasn’t in making product decisions myself, but in creating an environment where excellent decisions could emerge systematically from empowered teams. Situations like this are truly humbling.

I knew I needed to build and coach a team that was disciplined, low ego, quick on their feet, and able to make solid decisions. That mix, I realized, wouldn’t just help us succeed in the moment—it would create a system that keeps developing great leaders and amplifying impact across the company

The Critical Distinction: Management vs. Leadership

Before diving deeper, I must acknowledge an important truth: the path to leadership isn’t necessarily through management. Too often, we conflate career progression with accumulating direct reports. I have found that this mindset not only stunts potential growth paths for individual contributors but also creates reluctant managers who never truly want the role.

In engineering, many companies offer two career paths: Individual Contributor (IC) and Manager/Leadership, so talented engineers can grow without having to manage people. But for product managers, this kind of system isn’t as common, which can create roadblocks for those who want to focus on their craft rather than leadership roles. As a product leader who has hired and coached numerous product leaders, I have seen exceptional product managers reluctantly take on management roles simply because they saw no other path to advancement. The resulting disengagement harms both the individual and the organization.

I firmly believe that true, inspiring leadership goes beyond holding a title. Some of the most influential product leaders I have worked with were senior ICs who led through vision, expertise, and mentorship rather than through reporting relationships. The distinction isn’t whether you manage people, but whether you multiply impact beyond yourself.

The Four Pillars of Product Leadership