I've been building products for a while, but working on my own stuff is very different than organizing and leading a team. My approach really cemented when I became a PM.
My time as PM was mired with setbacks, starting with my dad passing away 1 month in. After I came back from spending time with my family, my team was dissolved. I was left with no manager and no projects as I dealt with my hard loss, a dark time.
I started operating small and scrappy to build trust: taking meeting notes, following up on tasks, and asking to help where I could. I built connections with my peers and learned how everything works in customer success, sales, deep engineering, and digital marketing. I also found others being mismanaged like me and worked with them to turn what I was learning into small projects we could ship.
The darkness slowly became brighter. I became a goto to solve problems; leveraging my tight relationships and deep understanding across the company to find solutions. As I earned more work, PM leadership would note how quickly I implemented feedback. The scrappiness never stopped.
Eventually, I was trusted to take over for two weeks while the lead PM on our Onboarding overhaul went on vacation. But as soon as I became the main communicator, I realized the extent of the communication gaps and confusion on the project.
The root of the issue was that team members didn't have the psychological safety to speak up. I quickly read The Culture Code to use its concepts to fix safety; spending the next week listening deeply to everyone and understanding all the technical and UX details causing problems.