Casey Winters (CPO @ Eventbrite), Fareed Mosavat (Reforge EIR, Former Dir Product @ Slack), recently published Crossing the Canyon: Product Manager to Product Leader. The main point, most product careers stall out trying to make the jump to leadership.
The core reason: what got someone to a senior product manager, does not get them to a product leader. Rather than an evolution of skills, it is a completely new set of skill. This creates the product leader canyon.
There are four main transitions someone needs to make:
Depth in one type of product work → Breadth across multiple types of product work
Being good at your job → training others to be good at theirs
Solving with the resources you have → Solving by allocating resources and influencing others
Gaining more personal scope → Creating more scope for the organization
When I read the article, there was one section that hit close to home because I've made this mistake repeatedly in the past:
"A common trap is keeping the most important projects for yourself. Because you got to this level by being a great executor, the natural thought process is: "This is important, I can create a better outcome myself, therefore I should do it." The first two parts of that statement are often true. It is important and you probably can do it better yourself. But here is what happens when you do this:
Stolen Learning Opportunity - You've taken an opportunity to learn away from someone on your team.
Trap Yourself In The Weeds - You've taken away your ability to spend time on the hard strategic work that makes you successful in the leadership role because you are in the weeds of delivering a hard and important project.
Holding The "Secrets" - You end up not communicating the things that you know that will help others be better at their job because when you are the one executing, you aren't forced to."
These principles don't just apply to product, but across a lot of functions so I recommend reading the full article regardless of your role.
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