Product Leaders and Product Managers have to be tough. They need to push themselves to excellence, and they have to bring others to excellence through hard to achieve goals, hard to hit deadlines, and high expectations. The best leaders I’ve worked for are tough - they are relentless and tenacious.
Toughness is not the same as grit, which is perseverance through challenge. Rather, toughness is the relentless pursuit of raising the bar and pushing harder to achieve a goal. Toughness is ‘strive’ with muscle and horsepower. When toughness is combined with empathy and vision, leaders manifest results that others thought impossible.
Real toughness is rooted in a firm belief that people are capable of great things. It is rooted in empathy and an ability to get the best out of yourself and others with the right push, proper motivation and above-and-beyond effort, tethered to aspirational goals that make a team straddle the line between “Is this possible?” and “What If?”
Here are some common situations where being tough is hard, but important:
Deadlines are looming and teams are inclined to cut corners - don’t let this happen! Expect yourself and teams to put in the same effort and quality while hitting the deadline, even if it means a hard-nosed sprint
Team members aren’t quite getting it, so you do it yourself - don’t let this happen! Leaders need to scale themselves through others, and you cannot take on work that your team is expected to do just because it’s hard. Put that toughness to work and work with your team to teach them or have them fail until they get it
Work isn’t meeting the objective, but it’s “close enough” - don’t settle for “close enough!” If the work isn’t quite hitting the mark and you know it, then employ toughness. Make sure you communicate what the expected outcome looks like, and work with your team to define what they need to do to elevate the outcome. You can do it!
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