How do you assess leadership potential when a candidate is looking to grow in product marketing? What are the top skills?

The biggest attributes that indicate PMM leadership potential are: 

• Comfort with ambiguity
• Ability to articulate a thematic narrative
• Planning, delegation, and execution skills in tandem

Ambiguity is a fact of life, especially when it comes to product roadmaps, timelines, and resources. A great PMM leader will help others see that the ambiguity isn't an absence of playing field, but a more frictionless path towards whichever endzone they choose.

Thematic narratives are key to setting the PMM vision because they break free of the highly biased inside-out view of what the product or feature is and how it was engineered or designed, and, instead, focuses on why it matters (and for whom it matters) through the outside-in lens of the market's pain points, objectives, and practices that already exist. This has the added benefit of seeing and understanding competition and ecosystem dependencies in context.

And go-to-market is all about not just the positioning and messaging strategy, but, also, how the positioning and messaging come to life for the audience. So being able to partner across teams to drive tactic and channel ownership is really key to delivering outcomes from the GTM plan. And, even at the most senior levels, owning some part of execution so that you can model what good practices and assets look like is important, especialy in companies where PMM is a newer function.

PMM's are prime candidates for leadership positions due to the cross-functional nature of the work. Great PMMs and PMM teams are working with Product, Enablement, Sales, CS, Ops...not to mention all of their marketing peers. Because of this, there are plenty of opportunities to lead through influence or as a project lead.

While not all PMMs want to move to official people management (which is perfectly fine!!), for those who are interested, I look for the following skills:

1. Communication and Collaboration: They must be able to lead a project and communicate goals across diverse teams.

2. Macro Thinking: Ability to look at their projects and focus areas and connect them to larger company and market trends. Bonus points for being proactive with these ideas and bringing people together to execute on them.

3. Results Orientation: Track record of delivering measurable results, meeting targets, and driving business growth through their projects and product areas. Specifically driving the full cycle of goal definition, tracking, and reporting.

4. Leadership Presence and Mentorship: Demonstrated ability to work with others, lead projects by providing clear direction, and find ways to mentor and support jr members of the team.

And an added piece of advice, if your goal is to become a people manager, tell your manager! The opportunity may not present itself immediately, but get it on their radar.