What has been the most surprising thing about being a Director that you only realized after you were promoted?

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6 Answers

Product Management Career Path

Nicolas Liatti

Adobe Senior Director of Product Management, 3D Category • 1y

When you become a Director you usually become an executive at the same time. The biggest change that happens is the way how people look at you: everything you say is interpreted in a different way when you are a Director. This means you really need to change how you communicate and manage people, even if your scope didn't change much. This means that expectations from people are way bigger, and this usually comes with a big disillusion / crisis in the first few months after being promoted Direct ...Read More

1,041 Views
Milena Krasteva

Walmart Sr Director II, Product Management - Marketing Technology • 3y

Many promotions happen because the person was already performing and showing up as being at the next level. Depending on the company, the Director role marks a clearer line between individual contributor roles and management roles. However, unless the promotion is accompanied by a significant change in scope or new formal reporting lines into the role, perhaps the most surprising thing is that much else remains the same. You might now be on some additional distribution lists for Directors and ab ...Read More

786 Views
Anton Kravchenko

Carta Sr. Director of Product Management | Formerly Salesforce, MuleSoft, Apple • 4y

Leveling up to Dr level meant being a point of contact for many people at the company, which meant more inquiries from sales, customers, leadership, and other product teams. Since I got promoted, my inbox and # of slack messages doubled :)

My learning from this experience is that you want to document as much of the process as possible so people outside of your team can find SMEs and relevant information for your area.

1,113 Views
Sheila Hara

Barracuda Networks Sr. Director, Product Management • 2y

The most surprising aspect of transitioning from a Product Manager to a Director role was the significant shift in the nature of customer feedback I encountered. While I appreciated gaining more context and visibility at the strategic level, I found that my interactions with customers became predominantly centered around escalations and resolving issues. This contrasted with my previous experiences, where I often heard a balance of positive feedback alongside the challenges. Adjusting to this ch ...Read More

492 Views
Vasudha Mithal

Care Solace Chief Product Officer | Formerly Headspace, Ginger, LinkedIn • 2y

The work keeps getting more and more ambiguous the more senior you become. You have to take initiative to stay connected across the company, keep a pulse of the market/news to ensure you are able to guide the work of your teams. It becomes less about working on a specific project but more about ensuring we are pumping resources on the right projects. It is equally important to prune the work as much as to add more.

433 Views
Julian Dunn

Chainguard Senior Director of Product Management • 2y

I think I intuitively knew this, but the amount of time one ends up spending on trying to improve communication between different individuals and teams in the organization increases dramatically as you become a more senior leader. Much of this work happens behind the scenes and is hidden from ICs. It can involve anything from the coaching that you do with your team to improve their communication to the cajoling (and yes, sometimes threatening) that you need to conduct with other functions like e ...Read More

428 Views