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The most important product manager skill: empathy
Not many people would disagree that Steve Jobs was probably one of the greatest Software Product Managers of all time. He has been a visionary, an innovator, a remarkable engineer, and all this while being a seasoned businessman who understood the market like no one else which made Apple the most valued brand in the world.
As per Glassdoor.com, there are ~15,000 product manager openings in America for the year 2021. Considering the state of the world economy, this is huge. Product management ranks as the 3rd hottest job profile in America for 2021 as per the employer review portal.
To anyone looking at these numbers and wishing to get into product management (the median salary is not too bad, eh?) the obvious question would be how do I break into product management? what are the skills required for product management? what is the one important skill that I need to develop as a product manager? It is something that I have always thought about — What is that one skill that every product manager should possess irrespective of the product, company, or domain.
Product management is a vast ocean. You have technical product managers, senior product managers, junior product managers, mobile product managers, product marketing managers, and the list is endless. In addition, there are also industry-specific PM roles like e-commerce, learning, gaming, fintech, etc. A lot of these roles require skills and domain knowledge acquired through experience over time. However, there are some skills that product managers need to develop as part of their personality, such skills include soft skills like communication, storytelling, interpersonal skills, prioritization, etc.
You ask 10 people to define a product manager and I am sure you will get 12 different answers. Mini-CEO, captain of the ship, orchestra conductor are some of the common similies used to define product managers.
