In this discussion, Kate Leto, an organizational design consultant and product advisor with 25 years of experience, shares her insights on hiring successful product managers. She highlights the importance of both hard and soft skills, advocating for a growth mindset in leadership and teams. Kate explores the role of emotional intelligence in product management and emphasizes the need to prioritize human skills over technical expertise. Additionally, she discusses strategies to improve hiring practices and the impact of diversity on team dynamics.
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insights INSIGHT
Motivations for Hiring
Some companies hire product managers to check a box.
Others hire them to drive meaningful change.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
The Role Canvas
Use a "role canvas" before hiring product managers.
This helps define the role's purpose, accountabilities, and required skills.
insights INSIGHT
Human Skills vs. Technical Skills
Human skills like leadership and influence are crucial for product management success.
Technical skills are often overemphasized in hiring.
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In 'Hiring Product Managers: Using Product EQ to go beyond culture and skills', Kate Leto emphasizes the importance of human skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, and adaptability in successful product managers. The book provides practical tools and techniques for hiring and developing these skills, moving beyond traditional culture fit approaches to create more diverse and effective teams.
Kate Leto is an organisational design consultant, coach and product advisor with a 25 year track record helping to build product teams that thrive. She joins Melissa Perri today to talk about some of the challenges in filling product management roles that companies run into all the time – and how to overcome them. Ultimately, Kate believes that growth mindset – both of leadership teams and product managers themselves is what makes the difference between success and failure. is a career coach who specializes in hiring product managers and organizational design.
Here are some key points from Melissa and Kate’s conversation:
There are two high level motivations for hiring a product manager. This first is because it ticks a box, the second because you need to make meaningful change. [Listen at 04:45]
How Kate has learned to hire great product managers, and strategies for doing so that she helps her clients implement. [Listen at 07:30]
The role of emotional intelligence in product management and organizational design, and the key trait that indicates someone will be successful. (Listen from 12:00]
The Story of Pete – the team member we’ve all worked with who is technically excellent – but not so strong on the human skills. [Listen at 14:45]
How to identify and call out the specific issues when you get the feeling that something is off during the interview process. [Listen from 22:30]
What is the mindset you need for success, and what happens when someone doesn’t have it. [Listen from 28:00]
The diversity problem plaguing many organizations in tech and other industries; Kate and Melissa talk about how to get out of the trap of hiring the same person over and over again. [Listen from 29:40]
Hiring for senior and director level positions, and making sure you’re attracting a diverse array of applicants. [Listen from 43:45]
Resources
Kate Leto
KateLeto.com | Twitter | LinkedIn
Product Thinking 