The top 10% of product managers excel at a few of these things. The top 1% excel at most or all of them:

• Think big - A 1% PM's thinking won't be constrained by the resources available to them today or today's market environment. They'll describe large disruptive opportunities, and develop concrete plans for how to take advantage of them.
• Communicate - A 1% PM can make a case that is impossible to refute or ignore. They'll use data appropriately, when available, but they'll also tap into other biases, beliefs, and triggers that can convince the powers that be to part with headcount, money, or other resources and then get out of the way.
• Simplify - A 1% PM knows how to get 80% of the value out of any feature or project with 20% of the effort. They do so repeatedly, launching more and achieving compounding effects for the product or business.
• Prioritize - A 1% PM knows how to sequence projects. They balance quick wins vs. platform investments appropriately. They balance offense and defense projects appropriately. Offense projects are ones that grow the business. Defense projects are ones that protect and remove drag on the business (operations, reducing technical debt, fixing bugs, etc.).
• Forecast and measure - A 1% PM is able to forecast the approximate benefit of a project, and can do so efficiently by applying past experience and leveraging comparable benchmarks. They also measure benefit once projects are launched, and factor those learnings into their future prioritization and forecasts.
• Execute - A 1% PM grinds it out. They do whatever is necessary to ship. They recognize no specific bounds to the scope of their role. As necessary, they recruit, they produce buttons, they do bizdev, they escalate, they tussle with internal counsel, they *.
• Understand technical trade-offs - A 1% PM does not need to have a CS degree. They do need to be able to roughly understand the technical complexity of the features they put on the backlog, without any costing input from devs. They should partner with devs to make the right technical trade-offs (i.e. compromise).
• Understand good design - A 1% PM doesn't have to be a designer, but they should appreciate great design and be able to distinguish it from good design. They should also be able to articulate the difference to their design counterparts, or at least articulate directions to pursue to go from good to great.
• Write effective copy - A 1% PM should be able to write concise copy that gets the job done. They should understand that each additional word they write dilutes the value of the previous ones. They should spend time and energy trying to find the perfect words for key copy (button labels, nav, calls-to-action, etc.), not just words that will suffice.

I'm not sure I've ever met a 1% PM, certainly not one that I identified as such prior to hiring. Instead of trying to hire one, you're better off trying to hire a 10% PM who strives to develop and improve along these dimensions.

I had originally wrote the following as a comment to Ian McAllister's thoughtful answer, but I think it is really more a direct answer to the question:

Seems to me that ultimately great PMs are those that know what the market wants before the market itself knows and do whatever it takes to get that built. I don't care how well you match everything on a list of traits of great PMs, but if you end up with something people don't want, you can not be considered a great product manager.

Someone mentioned Steve Jobs is a great PM and I would agree. However, I don't think Steve Jobs was particularly good at a lot of the items that people have mentioned. On the other hand, he was amazing at knowing what people would want to buy and maniacal at making that a reality.

Hate to sound harsh, but following a list can make you very good, not great. Being great isn't about following a bunch of best practices - it is about having the right vision and doing whatever it takes to make that vision real even if means doing things that are against convention or goes against standard practices.

There is no formula for greatness in any field and in fact I would suggest that following guidelines on how product managers should go about their business probably gets in the way of being great. The ultimate goal of product management is the product, not the process.

The process is important when you don't have an unwavering belief in the correctness of your vision (which applies to most people) as the process is geared toward improving the chances of getting it right. But, if you know what you want to build is absolutely correct, you are able to ignore the process if it gets in the way.

Frankly, as odd as it sounds, it is too risky to encourage every PM to be great. It is much safer to encourage them to be very good and follow process. Few of us have the wherewithal to be great.

If you look at history, great people have much more in common with the colossal failures than with the very good.

My big 5 differences between the top 10% and the top 1% -

1. The top 1% would have failed at some point in life. That makes them not fear failure - and hence gives them the will to experiment, take higher risks and bigger bets than the others would ever do and hence make game changing products. More often than not, they will pick their battles and do a lot of thinking through to try and 'make' it successful. The top 10% want to continue from one success to another, thus continuing the good run but never breaking out to product something unique or great.
   
2. They have just the exact right mix of the bigger picture (market, target user segment, positioning, company strategy and goals, competitive positioning) and the ground-level details (day-to-day constraints, compromises, content plan, edge cases, design language, engineering dependencies etc). The top 10% will be super strong on 1 but very surface-level on the other.
   
3. They would say NO more than 95% of the time. Products are always built with limited resources, limited time and a barrage of ideas come from the PM, engineers, users, management et al. They must have the conviction to say NO many a time instead of meekly succumbing. And to do this, they need to be respected. And carry a lot of data and thoughts with them always. For doing this, they need command on business, design and technology (that deadly Steve Jobs combo!) to be able to have reasonable points of view. They certainly need to look at the ideas and keep them in a backlog, but the product strategy and users should determine what features will come next.The top 10% build a backlog of these ideas and keep picking off it.
   
4. They would be insanely focused on numbers. Not just looking at daily or weekly metrics - but sometimes if needed hourly! And not looking at all the metrics all the time, but the relevant metrics for the specific initiatives or numbers they fear or going off the ballpark, good or bad. And many a time, look a lot at derived metrics which are not too obvious. The top 10% look a lot at the numbers, but pretty much the same or similar ones every time.
   
5. They also know that metrics sometimes don't tell the full story. And they know when to balance it out - by believing in a sense of intuition or raw gut - a deep understanding of the product, the market, the positioning and the competition to predict where the market would move a few months / years down the line and be there to win that market. This raw gut is a rare thing skill-set though, and only the hardened thinking ones will ever come close to getting it.

High performance product managers ship highly successful products - this is obvious. The question is - how do they do this?

How many times have you seen a great technology release which the company couldn't sell? Or a great sales force without the products? Or great products which are not appropriate to a companies clients? A great product manager makes sure this never happens (or does ever thing they can to prevent this).

The key is organizational alignment. Product managers don't build or produce products or services, they rely on other groups to do this. It is the execution of other groups which the product manager relies - it is the PM's job to coordinate them. The PM must ensure each team understands what they need to do and when (sales, engineering, biz dev, ops, finance, marketing, etc) AND understand if these groups can and will execute.

In order to do this, they need several skills/abilities - several mentioned previously:

• Strong communication skills (verbal/written)
  
• Ability and focus to dive into details in order to assess effort and likelihood of success across teams.
• The ability to build a road map which an organization can align and execute around (visionary road maps which cannot be transformed into a tactic plan are not good product road maps, they are pitch decks)
• The ability to understand the various operating teams and how they work. This includes motivation, processes, mindset, structure, communication style, culture, skill sets. The breadth of this understanding is one of the biggest difference between great and average PMs.
  
• Enough technical wherewithal to assess the complexity and core challenges of any engineering requirement. This is critical for understanding timing/probability of delivery - and when to seek alternatives.
  
• An understanding of their company's business model and the ability to apply this to each operating team - this is critical for prioritization.
  
• PMs need vision, but this but it is additive to these other skills. There are tons of people with great ideas, but very few who can get them out the door.
• Structured approach to learning. Great PMs know how to learn what they need to - they will continually be faced with things they need to learn to be effective.

The top 1% of PM exhibit most or all of these skills.

A lot of good answers already, I’ll have some repeats here, but let me break it down to 3 things that I’d say top 1% have:

THEY’RE SMART - usually the smartest person in the room of smart people smart.
1. KNOWLEDGE: A top 1% product manager will bring a different perspective into discussions, based on their deep knowledge (domain, product, problem, customer).
2. GREAT AT VISION AND DETAILS: They’re great at seeing the forest (driving the big vision to meet the long and short term goals), and the trees (know what can and cannot be done/limitations, understanding level of effort, can drive prioritization across a complex roadmap, dive deep into the analytics driving their product/businesss, and problem solving in the details).
3. EMOTIONAL IQ: They have a deep emotional intelligence that allows them to connect with their customers, understand their problems. They know how their customers will react to new features and their deep knowledge of their customer will drive great design and elegant solutions.

THEY’RE INFLUENCERS
A top 1% product manager is highly respected in their organization. They influence at all levels of the organization.
1. RESPECTED: They’re respected for their deep knowledge (domain, product, problem, customers)
2. CAN SELL: They’re strong communicators – they can sell their vision, up, down, and across the organization. They know when, who, and how to influence to drive their visions.
3. PERSISTENT: When working on a hard problem, people in an organization have a lot of ideas on how to fix it. A PM in the top 1% sticks with the problem, and drives the right solution, even in the face of deep adversity.

HIGH QUALITY OF EXECUTION:
1. GET STUFF DONE: They break down barriers, they work across an organization to get their plans implemented.
2. WITH QUALITY: They instill quality in the teams they’re working with. Quality starts with them, not the organization, not the QA team. They are in there as a user, testing code, and they’re setting a high bar for the quality of their products, while focusing on on-time delivery.
3. KEEPING IT HUMAN: Some might say this isn’t necessary to be in the top 1%, and maybe if you’re in the top .01% of everything above you don’t need this. Anyone I’ve worked with that I’d categorize as a top 1% Product Manager had this skill – they can get all of the above done, and people love working with them.

This is a very interesting question. Let’s first understand what distinguishes the top 1% from the top 10% in any field. Let’s also acknowledge that the top 10% in any field are likely to be some of the top notch performers in that field. The margin of difference is likely small. Yet there must be that extra special “it” factor that separates the top 1% from the rest. As a result, the top 1% enjoy a well-earned exalted status. That is why we speak of Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, Serena Williams and such people in a different breath from their peers in the game.

What is the special “it” factor?

A few things come to mind. Most of the points below apply to team sports, and since building and launching a product is a team sport, this analogy might just work.

Consistency
The top 1% athletes have been consistent performers at the top of their game for a very long period of time. Did they have bad days? Sure. Did they win all the time? Certainly not. The occasional failure notwithstanding these performers could be counted upon to deliver the goods a very high percentage of the time.

What does consistency mean for the 1% PM?

One might be tempted to say that if you delivered one hit product after another in one awesome company after another, that you would be a highly consistent 1% PM. Not really.

Consistency is about performance, not about the outcome. The outcome is dependent on a lot of other things. For the 1% PM, it is about consistently excellent decision making and behaviors that contributes to successful outcomes. The 1% PM earns the trust of the team and the executive leadership and can be counted upon to take solid judgements and actions over a long period of time.

Consistently solid decisions, for instance, about strategic direction, roadmap prioritization and tradeoffs, investment cases, etc. The quality of such decisions is reflected in revenue, usage and market share growth.

Consistent behaviors that form the basis of those solid decisions, for instance, staying intimately connected with customers, users and the market at large, meeting deadlines and expectations for deliverables, always keeping a strategic perspective and clarity about what success means, communicating effectively and frequently, building strong relationships with all stakeholders, staying up to date with the technology stack and trends, to name a few.

Consistent decision making and behavior is critical to the 1% PM building credibility and trust within her organization.

Leadership
In a team sport like basketball, the top 1% players on the team emerge as the de-facto leaders. The team looks up to them. They lead by example. They provide the mentoring and coaching to the junior members of the team. They want everyone in the team to be successful. They do not let their egos come in the way of the goals of the team. If the team wins, they celebrate the team effort. If the team loses, the buck stops with them.

Phil Jackson writes about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant in his book “Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success” :

"One of the biggest differences between the two stars from my perspective was Michael's superior skills as a leader," Jackson said. "Though at times he could be hard on his teammates, Michael was masterful at controlling the emotional climate of the team with the power of his presence. Kobe had a long way to go before he could make that claim.”

The 1% PM is looked upon as a leader in the organization. Some of the behaviors mentioned above contribute to this. In addition, the 1% PM has a very strong understanding of her product, technology and the financials. She is intimately familiar with the KPIs and metrics of success. As a result, she can represent the product team effectively in executive discussions. She has a seat at the table and frequently leads the conversations when important decisions about the product line are made.

She communicates effectively across the team, but also with individuals, akin to shaking hands and kissing babies on the campaign trail, as they say. She does this genuinely and does not fake it. She negotiates, cajoles, resolves conflicts, and builds relationships, while ensuring everyone knows what ultimate success really means. The 1% PM demonstrates servant leadership because she knows that she will be successful when everyone around her is successful. Personal glory and decoration is less important to her for it’s own sake.

Confidence
The top 1% players have supreme confidence in their ability to deliver and perform at the highest level, regardless of the high pressure stakes. When the team is down by 3 points with just a few seconds left on the clock, they want the ball in their hands. It does not mean they will win every game from that situation, but when the chips are down, they want to step up to the plate, soak the pressure and lead by action.

The 1% PM exudes similar confidence. She is confident of holding her own in deep technical discussions with architects. She is confident of standing in front of a room of executives and articulating the product strategy, or making an investment case to help drive the strategy. When she visits upset and irate customers, she assures them confidently that the team has a plan in place to move the needle in the right direction. She knows she won’t be right all the time and doesn’t have to be. So her confidence is not one of arrogance. Rather, it comes from having the passion to make a difference to customers and to the organization.

Confidence of the 1% PM comes from having a strong work ethic. Success is not guaranteed, but confidence eliminates fear of failure.

All-Rounder
When the game is over, we realize that the top 1% of the players made their impact felt in all aspects of the game - offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, assists, high free throw shooting percentage, 3-point shots, steals, etc. They are all over the court, in fact they try and own the court.

The 1% PM is also an all-rounder. In startups, in addition to being the product manager, if needed she can hack together some demo code, she goes on sales calls as the sales engineer and installs the product, she writes the datasheet and the whitepaper, and she holds the attention of 300 people on a webinar.

In large companies, there are dedicated people in various functional roles. However, the 1% PM very much plays up and down the court. She meets regularly with sales engineers to understand insights from the field. She listens in on support calls. She works with marketing to understand the performance of lead generation campaigns and sales funnel analysis. She positions the value proposition and unique differentiators which form the basis of marketing messaging. She presents her product strategy and roadmap to industry analysts. She works with sales and channel teams to enable them to position and sell the product.

The 1% PM plays an important role across the entire product lifecycle, way before the first line of code is written, all the way to launch, driving awareness and sales, and supporting customers.

We may be tempted to say that this is fundamental for any product manager, but so many product managers are not able to cover the court, either due to lack of time, or due to lack of skills. The 1% PM knows how and where to spend her time and energy most effectively.

Work Ethic
The top 1% players have a strong work ethic. They don't shirk. They practice hard. They don't rest on their laurels, and they don't rely on their natural talents. They don't wing it. They are perfectionists. They work on all aspects of their game.

The top 1% PM also has a strong work ethic attention to detail. She does not make compromises. She puts in the necessary amount of practice before important presentations. She stays late with the team when needed. She gives equal attention to staff engineers and executives. She is always looking for learning opportunities and seeks mentors inside and outside the organization.

Alignment of Vision
The 1% athlete is not self made. Even Michael Jordan has a coach, and he is aligned with the coach's vision for the team.

The 1% PM is similarly aligned with the company vision. Her product strategy is aligned with the strategic direction and initiatives of the company. She leverages and extends the core competencies of the organization. She takes the effort to communicate and ensure understanding of the vision and strategy by everyone in the team.

What do you think?

Gravitas

I'm assuming that we're talking about ICs or 1st/2nd level managers of PM teams...people who put "Product Manager" or "Product Management" on their business card.

The top 1% of product managers must have already proven their mettle, or else they'd be rated lower. These guys are on their way to either starting their own shops, or are about to be promoted up and out of PM into a broader role. Almost by definition, a top 1% product manager is on the verge of taking a bigger job.

Other posters have listed various attributes that tend towards the mechanical. Writing skill, scope-vs-benefit discernment, focus, conveying complex topics simply and with effect, an eye for style ... these attributes can be developed and the best guys have these skills. They've also got passion for their domain, often visibly manifested by knowing the history and factual details of the dynamics in their area. Many bad PMs have some of the skills. Almost all top 10% PMs have

The special something that the best of the best PMs have *that the other top guys don't* is gravitas. This is rare, hard to develop, and in my experience is the difference maker between having all of the attributes of a top 10% PM and being the guy who makes you think 'wow, you're in a class of your own'.

I've worked with somewhere between 300-500 product managers, and for the top 3-5 PMs out of that list, gravitas is the differentiator. When a PM with gravitas communicates with dev, design, QA, PR, account teams, users, outside counsel, partner managers, regional marketers, research analysts, or execs in their own management chain, people respond to the debate or discussion differently than they do to a smart guy lacking gravitas who knows the details and can articulately point to the data.

Gravitas can come with age/experience, but often it doesn't, and I've seen gravitas in PMs in their 20s. I think most people recognize gravitas quickly, but it's tough to define in a way that's not tautological. Gravitas is a little different than charisma - great sales/BD guys often have charisma without gravitas. The PM with gravitas makes clear and compelling points, either emphatically or diplomatically, but doesn't resort to ad hominem pointers. When people raise other lines of reasoning or counterarguments, the PM with gravitas has the data loaded in memory but uses it sparingly and deftly to move the discussion forward in a way that seeds the subconscious in the other participants that *this guy knows and cares about this*, while they consciously think "he's making the right point here" without drawing attention to himself.

Love the question. First some thoughts on the great (top 10%). The top 10%...

1. realize that a ol or ul is the best way to organize this answer for the reader to digest the information quickly.
2. Can communicate/interact with anyone as needed. This is a broad point that includes negotiation, listening, probing, praising, reprimanding, motivating, leaving alone, cutting loose, believing in, among others.
3. Knows that if they make this list or any answer too long, people won't read it.
4. Appreciate good design and simple solutions.
5. Can and like to manipulate data like its play-doh

Now on to the top 1%. The top 1%...

1. Realize that an ul/ol is great but maybe that isn't what's best for the intended audience. It breaks up the flow often making it hard to gain momentum. They also know your lucky if someone reads the first two bullet points and it's a slim chance someone reads/digests a paragraph.
2. Can deconstruct a feature or tool or concept or person. They can look at a Kraft Lunchable, mobile app, feature of some other product, or even a user and discern why/how it was built, what it really does, what the ideal/intended result is, and ways to make it better.
3. Would have read every answer on this page because they know the more knowledge and data you have (be it feedback, domain knowledge, sales skills, technical chops, etc.), the sharper your instinct is and there is no limit to that sharpness.
4. Would have read every answer on this page because sometimes the missing cog or great idea comes from page 11 on Google, the quiet sales guy, or something a friend said to you at 12AM in a bar last Thursday. Answers are everywhere.
5. Knows that bolding everywhere made it more impactful but also has several other ideas on how to achieve that. In addition, they aren't afraid to change things, abandon an idea for a better one, test and disprove/support, take calculated risks.
6. Passion - think zealous, fanatical. Their love of their product, desire to build something useful for others, and destroy the competition is what leads them to work harder/smarter, learn more, and rise above the rest.

Wow, this is a phenomenally good question! The pursuit of the answer has dramatically shaped my career over the years. So when I came across this question on Quora, I was quite excited.

A brief introduction is in order. My name is Suff, and I build digital products for a living. I've had the tremendous privilege of building world-class products for some of the world's biggest brands. I have built and led high-performing teams across the US, UK, Europe, and India. As someone who builds products for a living, I can assure you the essential thing anyone will develop in their lifetime is themselves. So what I share below is my thought process around sharpening the PM craft.

We are all aware that Technology has managed to permeate all industries. You will struggle to name a single sector that has not been impacted by the democratization of Technology. Product Managers (PM's) then find themselves at the epicenter of this Digital Transformation. So while PM's might appear to be everywhere, not all PM's or PM roles are the same. Are you intrigued?

Not all businesses are alike in their pursuit of digital transformation. On one hand, you have the companies with Tech at their core (e.g. Google, Microsoft etc). And on the other hand, you have companies that we wouldn't necessarily consider tech companies because they merely use Tech as an additive to their core business (e.g. Casper, Away, Deloitte etc). While both types of companies extensively hire PMs, the top 10% primarily reside in the Tech counterparts. The non-tech companies fundamentally have different business models that don't lend themselves well for a world-class PM to thrive in.

To help you understand how to progress through the ranks, I divide the process into two stages.

• Stage 1 - Breaking into the Top 10%
• Stage 2 - Breaking into the Top 1% ( or as I like to call it, the Jedi PM territory)

Let's have some fun, shall we? Let's use some gamification to break this down. Every stage give you pass through earns you badges and the different badges will help you understand what distinguishes world-class PMs from the rest.

Stage 1

• 🤩 Badge 1 - Product Visibility: PMs working on highly visible products with millions and potentially billions of users will likely have a very different experience relative to the others. Products like Alexa, Nest, iPhone, Airbnb, etc. fit this description. PMs leading key feature sets on these teams would have an opportunity, unlike anyone else. Hence, the learnings of a leading product that has already achieved success in the market and is a market leader help you acquire a rich set of skills and experience. The bonus of having a world-renowned product on your resume could get you a job anywhere you'd like.
• 🤹‍♀️ Badge 2 - Features Ownership: You have now managed to join a fantastic product Team, so congratulations are in order. Or are they? Not really, sorry. Working on a visible product is excellent. But it would mean very little if the feature set you oversee is less significant when compared to someone else who sees larger sections of the product. Imagine a PM on the Google Docs team overlooking flows involving onboarding, settings, help, etc. These are merely training grounds to help you hone your craft as a PM allowing you to scale up from here. As organizations scale, they optimize skills and resources for efficiency and growth across every stage of the product. Like the badge one, the top 10% aren't just leading highly visible products but also owning prominent aspects of the direction those products take, directly impacting growth and value.

Congratulations, you have grabbed two badges and are now leveling up. 🙌

• 👩🏽‍🚀 Badge 3 - Founding Member: At a certain point while chasing Badge 2, you find yourself as a Group PM, owning and directing a highly visible product with a broad set of features. However, in this stage of the game, you would trail behind someone who is part of a product's founding team. Being the founding PM on a team that scaled the product from zero to one is unparalleled. It gives you a radically different and unique experience to add to your repertoire as a PM. Imagine being the first PM on the Gmail/Chrome team or being responsible for augmenting the growth of products like Superhuman and Notion from day one. Growing as a founding member allows you to claim founding rights that very few can claim. A difficult badge to earn but is achievable and worth its weight in gold.
• 🎭 Badge 4 - Skill Diversity: Some of the best PMs I know who have any of the three above badges all have one thing in common. They're all exceptionally talented generalists who can oversee a Product through a wide array of lenses. On one day, they are deep into technical discussions with the engineering teams. On another day, they are working with marketing to get the storytelling and narrative right. On a different day, they could be opening up Figma to mock up a new feature set they discovered while speaking to customers. All this while thinking about business strategy and market adoption. Product Leaders in this category come with a vast diversity of skills they're comfortable with and can roll up their sleeves when they have to and get sh*t done.
• 🥇 Badge 5 - Bleeding Edge Expertise: To scale the peak of the Top 10% mountain, you need to demonstrate in-depth expertise. You will need to accumulate this over many years by being hands-on in a given area. Eventually allowing you to transition into a Product Manager. I'm looking at PMs on teams like Quantum Computing at Microsoft/Google, leading products like Tensor Flow, or even someone leading breakthrough platforms like ARKIt at Apple. Becoming a PM on teams like this isn't a walk-in part. You have to be a practitioner with deep expertise in areas of Quantum or Computer Vision to be able to go toe-to-toe with world-class scientists and engineers. As every tech company is looking for the next big platform to dominate, this is a valuable space for a PM. And it will likely mean you have garnered skills very few people would compete with you on.

Congratulations, you have collected some battle scars and badges! You have leveled up to the top 10% and likely to the top 2-5% of the world's PMs. Now let's look at the badges you're going to have to achieve to get to the top 1%. Strap in for the ride.

Stage 2

• 🚀 Badge 6 - Platform Monopoly: PMs in the top 1% are working on Products that have achieved a monopoly in their current industry. A monopoly is crucial as it proves two things. First, that the product you're leading is unrivaled. Second, that you, as a PM, have been successful in ensuring it remains being a monopoly. I'm looking at PMs on products that are unfazed by any new entrants and those that dominate the market or are synonymous with how customers get things done. Google Search is a ubiquitous example in this case, which is the defacto way anything gets searched on the internet and the incredible value it provides. That said, products owning a monopoly don't just act as products but act as platforms. Think of all the products Google can support through its infrastructure. Everything from Maps to Mail to Assistant to Youtube. Imagine being a PM who makes the engineering decisions that help retain the competitive edge of the product while also enabling scale for other products to be created on top of it.. You are now entering the Jedi Territory.
• 🦄 Badge 7 - Societal Impact: The top 1% of the PM cohort are working on the most profound problems that impact societies on a large scale like autonomous driving, predicting and preventing the next pandemic, extending human life, finding habitable planets, etc. PMs working on such problems are part of a very elite cohort. The skills required to survive on these teams are unparalleled relative to the social media app shop. You're likely working with no previous attempts at similar products. You're working with very little historical data. You're inventing new working techniques because the old ones don't cut it out and generally operate in highly ambiguous environments with a lot of chaos. If you have capital running out, you have to make meaningful decisions that helps your company survive. If you've launched your products, you're making life-altering decisions, and you better be right. You are now operating in the upper stratosphere of Product Management. The highest level of craft a PM can achieve in their area of expertise - charting uncharted territories and kicking ass.

Congratulations! Your journey is complete.

Hopefully, this was informative, inspiring, and helpful :)

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Here's an extension to Ian McAllister's answer (which, let me add, is fantastic):

• They paint a vision: The best product managers create a big vision-- one that is bigger than just the product itself. More importantly, they can take a complex vision, simplify it, and communicate it-- making it easy for people to get it, and be a champion for the long and short-term vision.
• They focus: they see and communicate the bigger picture, but they focus on executing the short-term strategy like no one's business. They don't distract.
• They are an expert at human psychology and behavior: the best product managers think about the user in every scenario-- how they would think about x feature, how they would react to y design. They constantly ask: what would [muse/user] do?
• They wear many hats: they can do it all-- gracefully and seamlessly. They can guide the content direction, UI, and development-- while also wearing business development, product marketing, etc hats. They think broad AND narrow-- they understand and communicate how the product vision ties into the company (and beyond) vision. They know enough in all areas to be dangerous, and have their hands in all areas to make the product and team the best it can be.
• They show up as a leader.... every where and in every moment. They make everyone around them better though this leadership. They inspire people around them to think bigger, and push boundaries.
• They are vulnerable: they admit to mistakes, they take responsibility, and they continuously work on themselves/develop through the work.
• They make decisions quickly: they make decisions carefully, yet quickly considering multiple perspectives. They enroll and communicate these decisions effortlessly.
  
• They get related: they build strong relationships with people on the team (and inside, outside, up, down, and across the company) creating space for better communication and trust.
• They tap into intuition: the best product managers understand and seek knowledge (analytics, user behavior/research, others views) to hone their intuition. They create strategy and make decisions listening to their gut.

Distinguishing the top 1% of product managers from the top 10% involves a combination of skills, attributes, and achievements that set the highest performers apart. While both groups excel in their roles, those in the top 1% often exhibit certain exceptional qualities that contribute to their outstanding success. Here are key distinctions:

1. Strategic Vision: Top 1%: Exceptional product managers possess a visionary outlook, aligning product strategies with long-term business goals. They go beyond immediate market trends, foreseeing future shifts and positioning their products accordingly. Top 10%: Successful product managers in the top 10% also demonstrate strategic thinking but may not consistently exhibit the same foresight as the top 1%.
2. Innovation and Creativity: Top 1%: Innovators at heart, the top 1% consistently bring fresh and creative ideas to the table. They lead in introducing groundbreaking features, products, or solutions that disrupt the market. Top 10%: The top 10% are innovative but may not consistently introduce revolutionary ideas. They excel in adapting existing concepts and enhancing products.
3. Effective Leadership: Top 1%: Exceptional leaders, the top 1% inspire and lead their teams with a clear vision. They foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and accountability. Top 10%: Effective leaders in the top 10% also inspire their teams but may not consistently drive transformative change across the entire organization.
4. Customer Empathy: Top 1%: The top 1% deeply understand customer needs, going beyond traditional market research. They have an exceptional ability to empathize with users, foreseeing their desires before they are expressed. Top 10%: The top 10% also prioritize customer empathy but may rely more on traditional feedback mechanisms.
5. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Top 1%: Exceptional collaborators, the top 1% seamlessly work with cross-functional teams, breaking down silos and fostering a cohesive approach to product development. Top 10%: Strong collaborators, the top 10% may not consistently achieve the same level of synergy across diverse teams.
6. Impact on Company Growth: Top 1%: The top 1% contribute significantly to overall company growth. Their products become key drivers of success, expanding market share and revenue. Top 10%: The top 10% also contribute to company growth, but their impact may be more localized to specific product lines or business units.
7. Adaptability and Learning Agility: Top 1%: Exceptional product managers in the top 1% exhibit remarkable adaptability, thriving in dynamic environments. They quickly learn and apply new skills, technologies, and methodologies. Top 10%: The top 10% are adaptable, but their learning agility may not be as consistently high as that of the top 1%.
8. Global Perspective: Top 1%: Leaders in the top 1% possess a global mindset, understanding diverse markets and tailoring products for international success. Top 10%: The top 10% may have a more regional or industry-specific focus in their product strategies.

A top 10% PM is a Good PM

A top 1% PM is a Kickass PM

Since data about users is so much easier to collect now, everybody’s exhorted to be data-driven. Which is fine — unless you’re driven by only data. Data doesn’t capture everything. And it’s easy to make the numbers tell the story you want it to.

Sajal is a PM of a team of people who’s job is to get the highest ROI possible from Google adword spends. If he’d looked at the data, he’d be trying to find categories where ROI is low and try to improve them. Instead, he spent his time sitting with the team and understanding how they did things and he noticed that they were dealing with so many accounts that they couldn’t spend the necessary amount of time on each one to get more clicks. So he reduced the number of accounts each handled by 50%. Consequently, the ROI increased by 100% !

He wouldn’t have had this deep understanding if he’d only looked at the data.

Good PMs own the product that they’re hired for and strive to make it better. Kickass PMs understand that the product exists to solve a problem the customer has and not for it’s own sake. They don’t try to force fit their product for similar problems that other customers have.

When Apple set out to create the iPhone, they didn’t just add features to the iPod. They created a different product because it was a different problem. Sure, they added all the features that the iPod had knowing fully well that the iPhone would cannibalise the iPod. But they didn’t force-fit the iPod round wheel interface on the iPhone.

Changing behaviour is hard. People are used to the way they do things. They’ll only change if what you’re building is so much more valuable, or so much easier to use, that it’s worth the effort to change inertia.

Henry Ford could have solved the customer’s problem by breeding faster horses. Instead, he changed the customer’s behaviour by creating the Model T.

Of course the end to end customer experience is important. But that’s not how you keep customers. A customer will find it harder to switch if the ecosystem you’ve built is so valuable that competitive products can’t match that value. A Kickass PM realises that one company can’t solve all problems. So he leverages the work of other companies that are great at the problems they solve.

Zoho’s whole business model is built on this. Slack’s competitors are copying their features but are finding it hard to copy their plugin ecosystem.

A Kickass PM focuses — ruthlessly. He’d rather build an amazing product that’s incomplete rather than complete product that doesn’t impress.

Remember Yahoo Messenger? How many of it’s many features do you remember? What about Google Talk? How many features did it have? Which one did you use when both were available?

Customers are experts on the problems that they’re facing. But they’re not an expert at the solution they need. That’s supposed to be you.

The govt. of Denmark delivers free food to their elderly. Despite that, their nutrition levels were low. The govt. hired a consultant and asked them to fix the menu. The consultants spoke to the elderly as well as the cooks. They realised that the elderly loose a lot of things at their age: jobs, children, bladder control. The loss of control over their food becomes too much for them. Also, they crave to meet people instead of eating alone. For cooks, the job wasn’t well paid or appreciated. They used to be part of a cooking assembly line making the same stuff every week.

The consultant changed the format from delivery to a restaurant. The elderly could now order what they wanted and talk to their peers. The cooks were called chefs and given more control over what they cooked. A direct line of communication was opened between the elderly and the chefs so that the chefs also gained satisfaction from the impact they made and the appreciation they received. Nutrition levels soared. So did everybody’s sense of well-being.

*I might have got some of the details of this story incorrect. I heard it from someone else.

If you want the product to be built exactly as you want, then you need detailed product requirements. That’s the waterfall way. The problem with that is that you can’t easily course correct mid-way. That’s why agile became so popular. A Kickass PM knows that the best products are created through constant iteration and feedback from customers.

Since companies are set up as a hierarchy, people tend to listen to higher-ups. But a Kickass PM realizes that higher-ups haven’t spent as much time with his product as he has. And he’ll fight to the end to do what is right for the product.

Credits

Ideas: Lalit Keshre

Review: Sajal Chakravarty

Design: Sidhant Dhirmasant & Meghna Manga

See the complete post here: How to be a Kickass PM

They understand their Customers better than anyone else

The top product managers truly understand their customers. Often way better than even their customers understand their own situation. They are not only able to understand requests & requirements but are also able to innovate for their customers and market their creation.

See: https://www.blossom.io/blog/2011/12/23/empathy-focus-impute.html

They are able to communicate what they know to their Product Team

They are efficient communicators. They understand that product teams crave purpose & context to make great trade-offs. They ask "Why, Who cares & So what?" and help everyone in their team to understand.

See: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3392-humans-need-to-know-why#all_comments

They are cross-functional

They are unicorns. They are holistic. They can zoom out & drill down unlike others. They have a strong background in many fields. Design, Marketing, Engineering, Statistics, Sociology, Psychology, History & many others. Always curious and eager to understand & learn more.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath

A lot of really great answers here. So I'll just add my list -- many of these have already been expanded on by others:

• Curiosity: thirst for learning, always wanting to know why.
• Great customer empathy.
• Technologist with customer experience chops and business savvy.
• Present Futurist: always thinking about the future, but acting in the now.
• Getting-things-done attitude.
• Communication: One of the best communicators in the organization.

Which leads to what's probably the most important quality:

• Leadership: being able to communicate a vision, galvanize people, and get them to move with you even though they may not report to you.

Great question! The product manager has one of the best jobs in the company as well as one of the hardest. Make the wrong decisions and you’re a failure. But, define the right product for the right customer at the right time and you are a star.

Becoming a master product manager takes time, practice, and perseverance.

It’s an apprentice-based profession and you still can not study to become one at traditional schools. It’s not like becoming a doctor, accountant or lawyer. But, for those who master the skill, the rewards are great.

It’s the best job in the world when you know how to do it. At Aha! we communicate with thousands of product managers and their teams a week.

So, what separates the top 1% from the top 10%?

Here are our suggestions based on the ways we have learned that master PMs lead their products to greatness.

Use your product

The only way to understand the customer experience your product delivers is to use it every day. If you work in a high-tech company developing business-to-business applications, ask your engineers to give you access to a demo or staging environment where you can tinker with it yourself. There is no better learning experience than through hands-on use.

Talk to customers

Speaking directly with customers is the best way to understand how they engage with your product. Be open and in most cases, customers who are actively using your product will want to tell you what they most enjoy (or hate) which gives you insight and power to make decisions and trade-offs as you set your product roadmap.

Know the market

A large part of being the CEO of the product is clearly understanding the market dynamics and anticipating the changes, moves and shifts before they happen. Of course, no one has a crystal ball, but a product manager should have a thorough understanding of the market research, trends and leading indicators in the market and be up-to-date on the latest information.

Use the example table in Aha! for markets when you want to capture details about existing and potential markets. Above, you can see information about the market share, size, and channels for different countries.

Partner with sales

Meet with your sales team regularly so you know how they are selling your product, the feedback they are receiving from customers and the value the product delivers from their point of view. Identify the sales team members who are willing to provide guidance and feedback on how the product could help them be successful, then prioritize those features as well. You can do this by integrating with Salesforce (or another similar CRM tool).

Understand your competitors

Understanding the competition is powerful. If you do, you will start to anticipate the various directions the competition will take. Identify how they position their product to the market as well as how they build their product for actual customer use. Don’t base your own strategy on what you learn, but it should inform it.

Create in-depth profiles of key competitors and publish the info for your team. Capture critical information such as revenue, customers, and growth rate.

Product managers should be the happiest people on earth, but with all of the pressure to succeed it can become overwhelming. If you step back and return to the basics, you’ll master the role.

The top 1% of product managers are not only able to create and build great products, but they also understand the customer and market very well. They have a deep understanding of the entire customer journey and see opportunities that other people don't

It's not always easy for a person to reach the top 1% of product managers. There are certain traits that separate them from other employees in different fields. All the Top 1% of product managers have in common is their ability to make decisions without delay, innovate and have high-level problem-solving skills.

The Top 10% is made up of those who focus on customer satisfaction and striving for customer happiness. They are more people-oriented and prioritize improving their team’s morale over all else. These two types of PMs differ in how they approach their work, but both places value innovation and staying competitive with other companies. The Top 10% of product managers are able to plan things out, prioritize ideas and take action quickly when necessary.

The key difference that distinguishes the top 1% of product managers from the Top 10% is the ability to manage time. They have a strong ability to prioritize and organize their time, according to their priorities. Although there are no set guidelines on how much management experience one needs, the general rule is that a product manager should have more than three years experience in managing a team.

Rockstars vs. Legends: Top 10% vs. Top 1% Product Managers Imagine product managers as musicians in a killer band. The top 10% are like rockstars: highly skilled, with a loyal fanbase and a string of hits. But the top 1% are like musical legends. They not only churn out chart-toppers, but they redefine entire genres, influencing generations of musicians to come. Here's what sets them apart:

Customer Empathy: Top 10% PMs understand customer needs. Top 1% PMs anticipate them. They're like prophets, channeling user desires into products that seem almost intuitive. Future Focus: While the top 10% nail the present, the top 1% are strategic visionaries. They spot trends others miss and make choices that position the product for long-term SUcceSs.

Decision Making on Steroids: Top 10% PMs are data-driven. Top 1% PMs are data wizards who can also make lightning-fast, insightful calls based on experience. They can analyze complex situations and consistently make the right decisions.

Communication: Top 10% PMs can clearly explain a product vision. Top 1% PMs can inspire and rally a team around that vision, translating complex ideas into engaging narratives that everyone understands. Imagine the top 10% as skilled communicators delivering a presentation, while the top 1% are like Steve Jobs, captivating the audience and igniting a passion for the product.

Execution: Top 10% PMs can get things done. Top 1% PMs are masters of execution, turning ideas into reality flawlessly and anticipating roadblocks before they arise. Think of the top 10% as excellent project managers, while the top 1% are like elite athletes who execute with flawless precision and anticipate every move of the competition.

Top 1% product managers are doers, practical implementers and executors combined, the top 10% are usually one or two of the above at max.

Focus on the important over the urgent: There are several different ways of doing this. Perhaps the most important way to add value is to know how to communicate with designers, engineers, and other product managers. Make sure that you don't communicate just in terms of "reports" but try to include them in everything that you want done. If you assign them a task, ask them questions such as "what obstacles are you facing?" Be inquisitive because asking these questions can help you better understand your role. These tactics will help make sure that everyone knows what they are doing and that everything is getting done on time and within budget.

Have unmatched communication skills: The top 1% understand how to deliver their ideas in a way that compels action. They develop and articulate their ideas in a way that is concise, clear and understood by everyone. This skill is really important because it enables you to get more done and reach more people. It also allows you to present your idea without an over-reliance on slides (slides often times confound communication). Your ability to communicate your ideas without using slides will help you stand out from 90% of the PMs out there.

Not afraid to fail: If your goal is to be a top 1% product manager, you might need to try crazy things. Perfect example is Jeff Bezos who tried to enter the book market with a new and unknown way of selling books online in the early 90s (see amazons's creation story). In order for someone like him to get there, the logical thing to do would be to try things that are not guaranteed success, but have a chance of achieving it.

Multi-skilled with programming or UX background: A top 1% product manager is likely to be ex-technical, possessing a degree in computer science, engineering or something similar. They also probably have significant experience as product creators, sometimes building apps or software themselves. this kind of expertise is what makes them "gets things done", it also gives them the perspective on creating things that other product managers will not have. they have seen both sides of development - mapping out tech specs and writing code - as well as running numbers and thinking about profit and loss statements. Or maybe they possess a background in market research or user experience design. Perhaps they spent time in sales or maybe their entire career has been in marketing and client acquisition. Having a diverse background makes them uniquely suited to understand all aspects of their business - how users act, how to keep tech development going with limited resources, how to sell to customers using a variety of channels no matter what stage the company is at.

Understand consumer decision behaviour: The top 1% of product managers focus on how people make decisions. They determine what information the decision maker has access to, what they don't have access to, and don't miss details that the general population might overlook. Top 1% of product managers understand that humans fundamentally make decisions to avoid losses. What people say they will buy is fundamentally different from what they actually buy.

Live and breathe customer feedback: Top 1% product managers focus on the customer experience. This means they are constantly talking to customers even if it is just casually looking around and listening to how they talk about their products. They understand that every customer is different, and paying attention to them individually allows you to complete a better service for each individual. They go beyond just analytics and use tools like Bug Reporting or Loom to go beyond metrics to really dig into the psyche behind a customer

Question wizards: The underlying skill is ability to ask key questions of the target audience. The best PMs can formulate a question that reveals previously unknown and critical answers. Every product manager has a mission to understand the end customer, but not all product managers learn to ask consequential questions that reveal how customers are best served.

I think perhaps a point that some have missed here is the concept of "team." All of the skills and capabilities mentioned certainly are true and valid. But I have also witnessed people with all of these skills who were more involved with themselves rather than the people they are reliant on to actually build anything. They end up looking great to the senior managers above or the other functional groups outside, but to the actual engineers, designers and quality folks they work with, they come across as self-promoters. At the end of the day, product people don't actually ship anything. Nearly all of the final work is done by others. So they are completely reliant on them to build the product. How well they work with these folks (who are often of very different personality types) and establish trust; how well they represent the hive-mind of the team's ideas of the product will go a long way to the end product.

Some people believe that the ultimate product manager is a Steve Jobs type who will know and be all things and find talented people to simply execute (which actually is not accurate). I would argue that the best product managers are the ones who can connect to the very best creators and help bring about the best products, and communicate that to the outside world. Sometimes this means they will block and tackle for the team to isolate them from the noise from the outside, sometimes the reverse. Their judgment is what is most valuable then.

Dynamism is what defines the profile of a Product Manager. Every company employs a product manager, but everyone does not become a household name like NIKE, AMAZON, TATA, etc. These companies recruit some top 10% of Product Managers who have excelled in this field. But among them, only the top 1% defines this job.

Thus, the five qualities that distinguish the top 1% from the top 10% PM are as follows-

Lesson from the feedback cycle.

A Product Manager requires constant feedback from their customers and team-mate. The top 10% know the importance of the feedback loop and its usage. But what promotes them to top 1% is their ability to work 100% on this feedbacks and offer people personalize services. They know the exact nudge to impress their consumers and understand them more than what the consumers do by themselves.

Customer First service-

The top 10% Product Managers understands the need of people, but the top 1% put the benefit of people their priority. It helps them gaining customers for a prolonged period.

Forecast and prediction -

The top 10% of PM can put on the shoes of everyone and predict the outcomes from every perspective. But to get promoted into the top 1%, their predictions need to be accurate and meaningful.

Specific and crisp-

Every PM is a great thinker. But to be crystal clear, crisp, and readable of one's idea is what distinguishes the top 10% from the rest. And the ability to put in paper with the same agility, clarity, and detail separates the top 1% from the rest.

Big thinking but prioritized -

A Product Manager has to have far sigh as a part of their profession. But as I said, they have to be dynamic. Availability of resources never restricts their ideas. They know how to prioritize and which to put forth.

I hope my answer helped you gain valuable insights. Do follow me for more answers on lifestyle, productivity, entrepreneurship, etc.

There is a lot of ways to get complicated answers on this subject. I will try to keep it simple: most of the Top 1% of Product Managers are the folks that get the team to focus on the work that produces the maximum impact. In order to do that they gather data and interview enough users to have clear understanding of the following questions:

Who - who is your user? What do they care about in their day to day life? What kind of business are they in? How they think about themselves?

Why - why do they need your product? Why can't they find a solution? Why do they find existing solutions frustrating? Why will they go through the trouble of learning/installing/deploying something new?

What - what will happen if the product is brought to market? How will the world of your customers change? How will the world of their customers change? How will the world change?

If you have a clear understanding through relentless data mining, interviewing, focus groups and other methods and can articulate those three questions you will be ahead of 99% of Product Managers in the field.

Oh I have some great ideas on this - mostly based off of the following original article about scrum management in the HBR.

1 Built-in instability - This means presenting an idea to your team and then being willing for that idea to change completely as soon as it's out of your hands. For instance, let's say that one of your product lines has a launch. Do you have the creative requirements set up so there's so much flexibility there's room for you to be surprised?

2 Self-organizing project teams - The worst thing you can do to a team (tech in particular) is assign a "lead." Leaders emerge, rather than get appointed. Allow the team to choose whose lead to follow and allow that to change throughout the project.

3 Overlapping development phases - This one should be obvious to everyone by now but - don't design something that the developers haven't seen. They will have questions that will most likely change your design. In the case that developers are the product managers / same message goes off to you but flipped.

4 "Multilearning" - I had to go back to the books on this one. I think it's hard to translate this to a working environment where people are already hired for specific roles. But the best thing to do is encourage general learning events for everyone on your team regardless of position.

5 Subtle control - If I could star this one as most important I would, maybe because it's particularly hard to learn. This is the skill of being able to lead without pressuring, convince without manipulating and inspire without the exchange of extra money or treats. Also "tolerating mistakes" makes it possible for people to want to try new things.

6 Organizational transfer of learning - This is just so huge. As product manager it is already so hard to deal with everyone in one organization and meet all of their needs. Instead see if you can be the bridge between different layers. Help everyone get to know what others do and you'll be seen as the most significant player.

Read: Page on Postech for more details.

The simple answer is great products.

And in order to create great products, the top 1% product managers must be great orchestrators: manage internal resources, get stakeholders buy-in, manage customer expectations, etc.

But above all, they have to truly understand their customers (walk in their shoes) and adequately solve their problems, which is really, really hard.

Here are a few posts that we’ve recently published that give some more recomendations on how to become a great product manager:

• Valuable Insights from 5 Great Product Management Articles on Medium.com
• Product Managers: Don’t Waste Your Time On These 6 Things
• 10 Must-Read Books for Product Managers

Enjoy!

If you’re going from Top 10% to Top 1% it really comes down to impact. Once you get to the top 10%, you’re assumed to be nailing all the fundamentals. The thing that’s hard to nail is launching and landing features that truly make a big impact on the business as measured by clear growth in revenue or usage. The dirty little secret about new features is that while most are accretive, few are truly game changers. 1% PM’s ship game changers.

E.g., you’d want to be the Uber PM who launched the live map tracking screen; the AirBnB PM who shipped their first mobile app; the Google search PM who shipped autocomplete; the Apple PM who shipped Siri V1.

“Those who believe they can move mountains, do. Those who believe they can't, cannot. Belief triggers the power to do.”

These are the best lines I have ever read and it's from the book - The Magic of Thinking Big.

I'll quote an example of what thinking big is all about and how it can bring a change in your life.

#1. Believe in yourself.

A young woman decided two years ago that she was going to establish a sales agency to sell mobile homes. She was advised by many that she shouldn't and couldn't do it.

She had less than $3000 in savings and was advised the minimum capital investment required was many times that.

She was advised that it was too competitive and besides, what practical experience does she have in selling mobile homes, let alone managing a business?

But she had a belief in herself and her ability to succeed. She quickly admitted that she lacked capital, that business was very competitive and she also lacked experience.

But all the evidence that I can gather shows that the mobile home industry is going to expand - She said.

She added that - I have studied my competition. I know I can do a better job of merchandising trailers than anybody else. I expect to make some mistakes but I am going to be on top in a hurry.

And she was. She had a little trouble getting capital. Her absolutely unquestioned belief that she could succeed with this business won her confidence of two investors.

She did the impossible.
She got a trailer manufacturer to advance her and limited inventory with no money down.
Last year she sold over $1,000,000 worth of trailers.

Belief, strong belief, triggers the mind to figuring ways and means and how to.

#2. Consistency

Consistency is about performance, not about the outcome. The outcome is dependent on a lot of other things.
For the 1%, it is about consistently excellent decision making and behavior that contributes to successful outcomes.
Consistent decision making and behavior are critical to the 1% PM building credibility and trust within the organization.

#3. Simplify & Prioritize

The 1% knows how to get 80% of the value out of any feature or project with 20% of the effort. They do so repeatedly, launching more and achieving compounding effects for the product or business.

The 1% PM knows how to sequence projects. They balance quick wins vs. platform investments appropriately.
They balance offense and defense projects appropriately. Offense projects are ones that grow the business. Defense projects are ones that protect and remove the drag on the business.

#4. Communicate & Execute

The 1% can make a case that is impossible to refute or ignore. They'll use data appropriately, when available, but they'll also tap into other biases, beliefs, and triggers that can convince the powers. 1% grinds it out.

They do whatever is necessary to ship. They recognize no specific bounds to the scope of their role. They recruit, they produce buttons.

#5. Confidence & Leadership

The top 1% of players have supreme confidence in their ability to deliver and perform at the highest level, regardless of the high-pressure stakes.

It does not mean they will win every game of life from that situation, but when the chips are down, they want to step up to the plate, soak the pressure and lead by action.

The top 1% players on the team emerge as the leaders. They lead by example. They want everyone in the team to be successful. They do not let their egos come in the way of the goals of the team. If the team wins, they celebrate the team effort. If the team loses, the buck stops with them.

Hope this helps.

Many excellent responses already. Will add to the conversation by saying that the top 1% of Product Managers:

1-Are the Client Advocate...Every day, in every decision. Clearly, alignment with organizational objectives is a given; however, they advocate for, persuade and are change agents on behalf of the client / user.

2-Are the constant Evangelist for their product internally. Persistence, visibility, top of mind, lobbyist, champion, vocal, always there are things you think about in the best Product Managers.

3-Are Visionaries that can Execute. They lead teams to build the best products within many constraints and ultimately get the job done. Sometimes they are like Jack Bauer on 24.

I would like to add couple of things which I have seen in the successful product managers.
1. Out of the box thinking: I think the most important part is to come up with out of the box ideas.
2. Believe that anything is possible : Things like you can get anything on credit. You can make people work for you for free. That you can get discounts at any place (even on pending bills)
3. Make things happen: A crappy/sub-optimal solution to a complex problem is sometimes acceptable than having no solution at all. This was one of the hardest part for me to digest. Except for enterprise apps, people are okay if your app sometimes doesn't work but providing a great overall functionality. They are ready to give you benefit of doubt. So, great product managers do get best features out when they start working in the early phase.