What Capabilities Really Matter in Product Management?

As Product Management continues to evolve, leaders and executives are rethinking what capabilities matter most when hiring, mentoring, and structuring product teams. While Brainmates cite four foundational skills: Influential Leadership, Strategic Foresight, Technological Fluency, and Commercial Acumen, opinions vary widely on how essential each is, and when.

At Leading The Product 2025, we sought perspectives from product leaders and thinkers across the spectrum. The result is a nuanced picture that can help you shape hiring strategies, performance expectations, and professional development initiatives within your teams.

1. Influential Leadership: The Non-Negotiable Core

Across all perspectives, influential leadership stands out as a universal requirement.

Graeme Weatherill from hipages adds that leadership is about alignment and decision-making clarity, qualities that unlock organisational momentum.

As Adrienne Tan from Brainmates notes, leadership also defines product management’s strategic positioning:

“If Product Managers don’t master leadership … they won’t just struggle to succeed; they’ll fail to deliver the outcomes that drive real business impact.”

2. Strategic Foresight: Future-Proofing Your Roadmap

Strategic foresight elevates PMs from reactive backlog managers to forward-thinking value creators. It’s about seeing around corners, navigating trade-offs, and making long bets.

While Sarah, Graeme, and Megan Cook from Canva place heavy emphasis here, they also acknowledge that this capability takes time to develop and needs support from senior leaders.

Executives should view this as a leadership development opportunity: train your PMs not just in decision-making, but in vision crafting and market scanning.

3. Technological Fluency: Context Matters—Until It Doesn’t

The debate around tech fluency remains lively.

Ash Kerr from Scentre Group questions whether it’s essential, especially in enterprise or startup environments where PMs can lean on strong engineering partners. She suggests fluency is less critical than customer-centric design.

Duncan Norman from Xero, on the other hand, warns that the age of AI demands fluency, at least in application:

“If AI isn’t a priority, you’re on borrowed time.”

Megan agrees, noting that fluency enables innovation and speed. Graeme adds nuance, viewing it as context-dependent—except in AI-native environments, where it becomes vital.

For leaders: assess your product’s technical demands before defining tech fluency requirements but expect them to grow.

4. Commercial Acumen: From Optional to Essential

Anshuman Sinha from Google contends that commercial acumen is not core for early-career PMs, who often lack control over pricing, hiring, or cost levers. He believes that in many environments, product quality itself drives business success.

But others argue the landscape has changed.

Duncan calls commercial acumen “non-negotiable,”” especially in a world where vague value propositions no longer pass executive scrutiny. PMs must be able to translate product strategy into business outcomes, whether it’s revenue, retention, or lead indicators.

Graeme connects it to autonomy: commercial acumen delivers impact only when PMs have the freedom to shape roadmaps and priorities. Sarah and Megan align, viewing commercial thinking as critical to strategic prioritisation.

5. Adrienne’s Call to Action: Product Must Leave Delivery Behind

Adrienne offers a sharp perspective that cuts to the heart of the debate:

“Execution can be completed by another role in the organisation. Not by Product Managers—it becomes very seductive to remain in execution when we start there.”

Her stance reframes the view of product management as a delivery engine. Instead, she argues for a strategic repositioning of the function:

“It’s really time to level up and get out of the delivery function. Hold delivery accountable, but not be responsible for it. Then and only then will we be valued as a strategic role.”

For executives, this is a critical challenge. If product teams are buried in execution, they lose the bandwidth and credibility to lead. Adrienne’s message is clear: PMs must be empowered to lead strategically, or risk organisational irrelevance.

6. Beyond Capabilities: Execution Velocity and Adaptive Learning

Lastly, Megan reminds us that even the right capabilities fall short without speed and learning loops. PMs must ship fast, learn continuously, and adapt with purpose.

This is where product teams differentiate not through grand strategy alone, but through the consistent, high-velocity application of insight.

Takeaways for Product Leaders and Executives

There is no single profile of the “ideal PM.” Instead, success depends on context: company size, product domain, market dynamics, and organisational culture. But the directional signals are clear:

• Treat influential leadership and strategic foresight as must-haves, especially for senior PMs.
• Define tech fluency requirements based on the technical ambition of your product, but plan for but plan for increased relevance, especially in AI-driven domains. specially in AI-driven domains.
• Elevate commercial acumen as a strategic differentiator, not just a business-side bonus.
• Empower PMs to move beyond delivery. Execution can be supported elsewhere. Strategy can’t.
• Build systems for speed and adaptation because the market won’t wait.

Ultimately, Product Managers thrive when their capabilities are aligned with meaningful responsibility. Your role as a leader is to create an environment where those capabilities can translate into outcomes and where product strategy becomes business strategy..