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Stewarding Strategy Without Giving Away Accountability
As head of product, you own vision and strategy, but the best ideas don't all have to start with you. At Lucid, I sponsored a cross-functional strategy refresh, had product directors build their own area strategies within that shared context, and reviewed every quarter how well the layers lined up. That's stewardship. You invite others to strengthen the thinking, you make the calls only you can make, and you help leaders understand the strategy well enough to act on it with autonomy. Try this: ask each director to explain how their strategy supports the company's, and listen for the differences.
You can invite others to shape the strategy without giving away accountability for it.
As the head of product, you’re responsible for vision and strategy. That doesn’t mean every useful idea needs to originate with you.
At Lucid, I sponsored cross-functional work to refresh our product vision and strategy. Our executive team and leaders across the company contributed.
Product directors then developed visions and strategies for their own areas within that shared context.
Each quarter, I reviewed how those layers aligned. I cared more about that alignment than the details of the roadmaps.
The goal was to preserve autonomy while giving teams a coherent direction for their decisions.
That is what I mean by stewardship.
You stay deeply involved. You invite people to strengthen the thinking. You make the choices and resolve the disagreements that require your accountability.
Then you help other leaders understand the strategy well enough to act on it.
Try this in your next leadership conversation: ask each product director to explain how their area’s strategy supports the company’s product strategy.
Listen for different interpretations. Those differences give you something useful to work through together.
Where does your team need clearer strategic context before you can give it more autonomy?