Product Managers Are the Crossfire
After reading a certain article about being an unlicensed therapist (hi Kaisa!), many memories started flowing back. My original draft remained a draft for weeks, but eventually I realized the story might be useful for anyone struggling in a PM role.
There is a thing about PMs—especially in development-driven companies. We are rarely the most liked people in the room.
In the best case, we are respected. In the worst case, we are downright resented.
When I embarked on the PM journey, I was full of drive and optimism that everyone in the company wants their product to bring the best value possible to the customer.
I believed the role was mostly about translation and coordination. In my naivety, I also thought that:
- I can stay out of internal politics.
- I will let my work speak for itself.
I can transform non-tech speak into technical speak … and that is why the developers would respect me.
None of it turned out to be true.
Product managers sit in the crossfire. Eventually, they become the crossfire. The moment you start bringing evidence that something could work differently, you stop being the helpful coordinator. You bring friction. The uncomfortable truth is that this role only works if you occasionally challenge people with more power than you.
And power rarely enjoys being challenged.
For a long time I could not understand why I always seemed to start off on the wrong foot with the CEOs. Once I attended a Mind the Product conference and one presentation struck a chord. A CEO of a successful startup talked about how difficult it was to hand over decisions he used to make himself to the Product Lead as the company grew.
And that is when it dawned on me.
I was quietly replacing the CEO in decisions that had always been theirs!
With this new perspective, I felt much more empathy for my bosses, as handing over control is not easy. Unfortunately, empathy does not prevent egos from being hurt. My daily work started to resemble a warzone. The CEO trying to prove he still knew best. Me trying to keep the product coherent. And the development team pointing out inconsistencies in the vision and strategy.
After I left I swore to myself that in my next job I will do whatever it takes to stay out of trouble. But trouble found me again.
Maybe there is a specific personality type that gravitates toward this job. It involves a lot of multitasking, great organization skills, recognizing value, and listening more than most people are willing to. Listening and communicating with different kinds of people across the job spectrum—customers, business, marketing, developers.
You can compare it to speaking five different languages, while trying to capture an idea with all its cultural nuances.
The advantage of being capable of the above comes with a price. People start mistaking you for their personal therapist. And sometimes, it will be your boss.
Product managers are often expected to absorb conflict without ever becoming part of it. There is an illusion of neutrality because our teams de facto consist of independent experts that do not personally report to us, they usually report to the heads of their departments.
This is what attracted me to the role in the first place: the idea that I could focus on the value and the product instead of the company’s hierarchy. But the role itself creates its own power dynamics. The hidden emotional labour is multiplied by the fact that in many small and medium-sized IT companies we do not even have real peer groups to share it with. And the irony is, that more empathy you show in this role, the more emotional responsibility people place on you.
I wasn’t always good at setting boundaries. I am always there to listen, help, give advice. That is how I was raised, and I am working really hard on unlearning that. But there it was—another round of bosses who, for a change, used me as the unpaid therapist. Listening to their struggles, gossip on the latest internal politics, and what’s the worst—asking me to give opinions on my colleagues, my own team.
This is what catches you in between the rock and a hard place. In my last two jobs my 1:1 calls slowly transformed into an unpaid counselling session. Instead of discussing product decisions, we were discussing people.
And once you get caught up in it, it is like a train going off the rails at full speed. It is only a matter of time when it all crashes onto your head, as soon as you try and fight it back. And you end up:
Being a traitor to your team.
Your manager being angry at you cause “we were in this together”.
Suddenly excluded from important conversations.
Probably replaced.
In organizations where HR functions mostly as a recruiting department rather than a cultural safeguard, situations like this repeat themselves. If that balance breaks—especially when strong egos are involved—the PM becomes the easiest pressure valve in the system. From my experience, these situations rarely resolve themselves. The hierarchy is usually clear.
And the PM is often the one who eventually leaves.
Therefore, I would like to invite all the companies—when building a new product department—make sure you have processes in place that could interfere in such situations, before there is too many casualties.
Product management is often described as the role that aligns everyone.
In reality, it often becomes the emotional buffer of the organization—the place where everyone else’s tensions quietly land.
Which is why so many product managers end up acting like unlicensed therapists.
Just without the authority, the training, or the pay.
With love,
Zuzana
I drank 4 coffees while writing this post - support my habit by scanning the QR code/click on the link :)