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Recently, I spoke with a Product Director who was in trouble.
He’d been a top-performing Senior PM. His company promoted him to Director — the role he’d been chasing for years.
Big salary. A team of PMs. Leading major products. Everything he thought he wanted.
Until reality hit.
He booked a call with me because he was drowning. Feedback was turning negative. His team was frustrated. Delivery was chaotic. No one followed his roadmap.
He looked successful on paper. But behind the title, he was overwhelmed and stuck.
It didn’t take long for me to see why:
He was still working like a Creator in a role that required an Operator.
The Creator-to-Operator Shift
This is one of the most common traps for new Product Directors.
You get promoted because you’re great at creating — leading discovery, driving outcomes, making product decisions.
So, when you step into a Director role, it’s easy to think: “I’ll just do more of what got me here.”
Big mistake.
The Director job isn’t “PM, but bigger.” It’s a completely different job.
Most new Directors fall into the “super PM” trap:
They try to make every decision.
They jump into every detail.
They dictate how PMs should work (“be like me”).
They micromanage instead of coach.
That leads to burnout, frustrated teams, and zero strategic leverage.
Becoming a Director isn’t about doing more product work. It’s about creating the conditions to enable the best product work.
What You’ll Learn Today
Why so many Product Directors get stuck.
The critical mindset shift needed to succeed as a PM Director.
How your value changes when you move from doing the work to leading it.
What it means to operate instead of create.
What operating actually looks like in practice
5 steps to help you make the transition successfully
Your Value Changes at the Director Level
As an IC PM, you create value by building products.
As a Director, you create value by building teams and systems that build products.
Your success shifts from direct impact to indirect leverage.
Here’s the difference:
As a PM… | As a Director… |
|---|---|
You lead decisions. | You build the system that produces good decisions. |
You drive execution. | You enable consistent, scalable execution |
Your success is what you deliver. | Your success is what your team delivers. |
Most new Directors miss this shift. They stay too close to the work and too far from the system.
What it Means to Operate, Not Create
Operating means building the conditions for great product work at scale, over time.
You’re no longer writing the requirements or defining the features.
You’re designing the machine that creates great features.
Think of it this way:
Instead of building features, you build teams.
Instead of owning the roadmap, you own the strategy and structure behind it.
Instead of solving problems, you ensure the right people solve the right problems the right way.
The Operator creates leverage — turning time, talent, and process into sustained results.
That’s your real job at the Director level.
Why the Shift Feels Weird
Simple: This transition hits your identity.
You got promoted for being a great creator. Letting go of that feels like abandoning what made you valuable.
You miss the dopamine of shipping. The praise. The clarity.
At the Director level, the feedback loops are longer. Wins are fuzzier. Success flows through others.
But the sooner you stop defining yourself by what you ship and start defining success by what your team achieves, the faster you’ll thrive.
That’s when you stop managing products and start leading people.
What Strong Operators Actually Do
The best Product Directors master 5 domains of operation:
1. Hiring and Org Design
You shape the team, not just the roadmap.
Ask yourself:
Do you have the right roles and skills on your team?
Who’s best suited for which problems?
What’s the right team structure and capacity for the strategy?
What tools and resources do they need to deliver?
Whether you inherit a team or build one from scratch, team design is product design at the Director level.
2. Strategy and Portfolio Management
Zoom out from individual roadmaps. Focus on the portfolio.
Are your teams aligned with company priorities?
Are you making balanced bets across short, mid, and long-term?
Do you have the budget and resources to execute?
Your role is to connect strategy to structure and capacity, and make sure the product portfolio creates real business leverage.
3. Coaching and Performance
Your team’s growth is now your product.
Your job is to help your PMs grow. NOT by fixing their work, but by teaching them to fix it themselves.
You job is to:
Build judgment and confidence.
Give honest and personalized developmental feedback.
Hold high standards.
Celebrate growth, not perfection.
This is a whole new skillset. You need to learn how to do these well.
Great Directors don’t create better backlogs. They create better PMs.
4. Process and Execution Systems
You own the how of product work. This means designing:
Rituals and cadences
Decision-making models
Communication flows
Criteria for success
You’re building the engine that drives consistent product execution — not the individual products.
5. Cross-Functional Leadership
You’ll spend more time with your peers and senior leaders than PMs.
Your job is to:
Align product with company direction.
Build trust with all the cross-functional departments.
Resolve friction before it becomes dysfunction.
At this level, your influence depends on relationships as much as decisions.
The Real Game of Leadership
When you become a Director, you’re not just leveling up. You’re changing games entirely.
Remember:
Your job isn’t to do more product work. It’s to enable better product work.
You win by building strong teams, scalable systems, and clear strategies.
Operating means stepping back from execution and stepping fully into leadership.
How to Start Operating, Not Creating
If you’re preparing for the Director role, or are already in it, start here:
Redefine success. Focus on outcomes through your team, not personal wins.
Create clarity. Define how priorities are set, how decisions get made, and how performance is measured.
Coach deeply. Ask, don’t tell. Build your PMs’ judgment. Back them when they take ownership, even when they stumble.
Build trust early. Invest in peer relationships before conflict forces you to.
Step out of the spotlight. The real win is when your team succeeds without you in the room.
Want to know if you’re ready and how to prepare? Here’s my free playbook.
Final Thought
Becoming a Director isn’t about scaling you. It’s about scaling impact.
Your job is to build the system that makes great product work happen — again and again.
Make that mindset shift, and your impact will last far beyond any feature you ever shipped.
That’s it for today.
Have a joyful week, and, if you can, make it joyful for someone else too.
cheers,
shardul
Here are 4 ways I can help you today:
Strategy Design Workshop: Transform scattered priorities into clear, actionable direction. I’ll facilitate your team through a customized workshop to align stakeholders and create strategies that actually get executed instead of forgotten. Book a call.
Product Management Audit: Get a clear picture of what’s working and what’s holding your team back. Through a systematic analysis, I’ll evaluate your strategy, processes, roles, metrics, and culture. You’ll walk away a practical set of findings and actionable recommendations to strengthen your product organization. Book a call.
Corporate Training: Elevate your entire product organization. I’ll teach your team how to think and act strategically, craft outcome-driven roadmaps, and dramatically improve how they deliver measurable results that matter to your business. Book a call.
Improv Based Team Building Workshop: Boost creativity, trust, and collaboration through improv. Your team will problem-solve faster and work better together. Book a call.
Shardul Mehta
I ❤️ product managers.