You’re not a dictator – you’re a facilitator of product responsibility

The real role definition of a product director

You work as a product director. You ship a feature everyone seemed to want. It flops — and now it’s your fault.

Finance says, “We warned you.”
Ops says, “We flagged the risk.”
No one took accountability when it mattered. But after the fact, the complaints come.

This is uncomfortable — but it’s not dysfunctional. It’s human nature.

As a product director, you are never better than your last delivery.
And whether you like it or not, you are the default scapegoat.

The result? The company’s attention span shrinks to one release at a time. There’s no memory, no pattern recognition, just short-term reaction.

Some product leaders think their job is to sit quietly, be the smartest person in the room, and prioritize Jira tickets in solitude. But I’ve rarely seen anything great come out of that.

The real job — and the real opportunity — of holding this title is different.

Your role is to become the incarnation of the product for the company.
You are the voice that carries the vision, the risk, the context — the thread that holds it all together.

You help the entire company make sense of what you’re building.

This means stepping out of the dictator role — not to give decision power away, because as Head of Product, you are the final decision maker — but to focus on becoming a facilitator.

That means creating structured conversations with anyone who wants to engage. Not “Do you like Feature A or Feature B?” — but:

• What does it cost?
• What are we willing to invest in a feature?
• What risks are we taking?
• What’s the potential reward?
• Are we building new assets or reusing old ones?
• What do we expect from the market?

If you can shape your conversations around these questions, your relationship with Sales, Dev, Marketing — all of them — will change. You’re building real understanding.

And when things go wrong — and they will — this is what saves you.

Let’s be honest: if you ship one release per week and only one out of fifty goes badly, you’re doing exceptionally well. But something will go sideways eventually.

The one thing you want to avoid is the scapegoat spiral. It wastes time, drains energy, and turns teams inward.

The discussion you do want is: “Yeah, we knew this could happen. It was a calculated risk. What’s next?”

That’s your moment to rebound. You volley back:
“Next up, we’ve got Feature A and Feature B, and the data looks strong — thoughts?”

Boom — you’ve reset alignment, momentum, and focus.

The point here is: get out of the Jira tunnel vision.
You won’t create lasting value by obsessing over the next ticket.

Your role is bigger. Think longer.

There’s a British bodybuilder named Jordan Peterson (not the philosopher), who once said:

“Everyone comes into the gym trying to make today’s session their best ever. That’s the wrong mindset.”
“What matters is what you build across a year — 50 good weeks, 4 sessions per week. That’s your real focus.”

Same with product. Don’t obsess over the next release.
Your job is to help the company move toward a structure that consistently delivers better product releases — over and over again.