Should Product Managers be Extroverts or Introverts?

Product Management Extrovert or Introvert

Listening and Empathizing are the two most important Product Management skills.

 

There are two broad categories of Personality types. 

  1. Extroverts are good at spontaneous communication and are good at public speaking. They have the Halo Effect and are the preferred choice in Leadership roles by Organizations. They are good at functioning from System 1, fast and make quick decisions. However, System 1 lacks deep thinking and long-term thinking. (Reference Book – Quiet by Susan Cain)
  2. Introverts are silent and speak after deep thinking. Introverts are good at functioning from System 2. They are not natural public speakers but have tons of insights and wisdom. Introverts are good observers and listeners. So, they can derive the right insights from the conversations because of their listening ability and observation power. 

In Product Management, while interacting with customers, Product Manager must be extroverted first to create the Halo effect and then get into the listening mode and empathize with customers to understand their problems.

Listening mode is very natural for Introverts. 

Product Managers must become Introverts while doing long-term planning and thinking deeply about customer problems & listening to different Points of View of engineers, UX designers, Sales, Customer support and Professional Services Teams. 

Listening and Empathizing are the two most important skills for Product Managers. 

Product Managers must be extroverts when working with engineers & sharing customer problems clearly with them. 

Two key lessons: 

  1.  A Product Manager should have a balance of both personality types: Extrovert and Introvert. 
  2. Great Product Managers can use both characteristics of extroversion and introversion effectively in their role based on the demand & needs of the role. 

Want to learn the Product Management Course, Join us. 

If you want us to do Product Management training for your company, contact us @ rahul.vtc@gmail.com 

Our Differentiators: 

  1. Harvard Business School case-study-based training
  2. The cost of the Product Management Training is only INR 19,999/-
  3. Duration is only 1 week
  4. Product Management Trainers have combined professional experience of more than 40 years in Product Strategy, Product Management and Product Marketing
  5. The Trainers also have 10+ years in Academics and Product Management Training.
  6. We cover the vast domain of Product Management and include all the topics like Behavior Driven Design and concepts of Choice Architecture, Nudge and Behavioral Economics.
× How can I help you?