Everyone knows the feeling of Imposter Syndrome, but sometimes as a leader you also deal with just being an Imposter; your team will ask you for guidance on something that you have never actually done yourself. Obviously as the number of degrees between an org leader and individual contributors grows, the less likely the leader has a handle on the day-to-day work, but many execs (including me), rely on their past experience to bridge that gap and provide useful direction; but there are instances where you either have no experience to call on or it’s so legacy that the context no longer applies. For example, whenever a new hiring manager asks me about talent management (sourcing, selling, closing, onboarding, coaching) I feel like I can share timeless insights…but if a PM asks me the best way to organize a backlog that cuts across 7 different tools to collect customer input, it dawns on me that I haven’t even used 6 of them. What is a product leader to do?
Great article, Ibrahim. Actual knowledge is in putting learnings to work and validating them!