In this testimonial interview, Amy, a newly appointed Director of Product at Symphony Talent, recounts her struggle transitioning from a senior product manager role to senior leadership. She describes a widening gap in relationships with her manager and C‑suite, highlighted by vague, negative feedback from her chief product officer that she was “not strategic enough” and “not visionary enough.” Seeking to survive and thrive in her current environment, Amy enrolled in Lynne Levy’s coaching program. The program helped her build confidence, understand the importance of alignment, and develop tailored communication strategies for senior leaders. She learned to read leadership cues, anticipate reactions, and mirror behaviors to secure agreement. Amy also highlights the unexpected value of group coaching sessions, which provided camaraderie, diverse problem‑solving perspectives, and richer analytical decision‑making. As a result, she feels significantly more capable of managing senior leaders and advancing toward a VP role.
Chapters
I'm happy to say that I joined Symphony Talent, which is another HR tech company, as a director of product.
What were some of the challenges you were encountering?
I was a senior product manager and I felt competent in product management where I can do agile and Kanban product management with my team, running, writing stories, writing requirements, and collaborating with designers and cross-functionally and engineers. But then I started realizing as I'm leveling up that there is this rift in my relationships with not just my manager, but the skip levels. So the C-suite, senior leadership. And it just felt like there's something missing and there's this perception that I'm just not doing my job well. And then I got really frustrated because I'm seeing a pattern of this perception and this lack of communication, and I couldn't understand why. And then I realized that, hey, whatever got me here as a senior product manager, the skills that I've developed, it's not going to be the same type of skills to get me to the next level. And I myself, as a professional, knew that I wanted to develop into the director role and see how I can level up to ultimately become a VP.
So what made you finally decide to say yes and get some help?
I originally joined Lynne's program not because I wanted to look for a new role. I just wanted to survive in the environment that I was in. I just wanted to work well with my leaders and just stay in my company and survive. You know, I learned about Lynne's program as I was trying to research some, some coaching because I knew I needed help from the outside. I think there's something that I hit a wall I couldn't figure out on my own. And I, I found Lynne Levy, we chatted a bit, but what really got me to say yes was an interaction with my chief product officer. And she, in our one-on-one, just had feedback for me that was really surprising and it blindsided me. And I just didn't know that this is what she thought of me. And I thought I was doing a great job with building products, shipping product and collaborating with others. But the fact that she came back with feedback, Amy, you're just— you're not strategic enough, you're not visionary enough. It's negative feedback and it's vague. And I don't know what the next, the, the actionable items are based on that feedback. Like, what do I do with this feedback? I don't even know what this means. Um, how do I improve? And that's when I knew that I, I'm going to jump on it and join this program because I wanted an answer and I didn't need— I needed help.
So what were, what were the best parts of the program? What, what, what were the best parts where you really felt like you learned and grew?
Uh, you know, the, the biggest takeaway that I, you know, it was eye-opening for me with the program is that it's building my confidence that, hey, the skills that I have, I'm competent in what I do. And really what I need to develop my muscle is how I navigate the landscape in communicating and presenting myself to senior leaders. The biggest things that I learned were that It's alignment. And alignment isn't how the strategies to align, to get to alignment isn't the same with working with your cross-functional peers that are lateral. It's going to be different when you work with senior leaders. They see things differently. They see things from a different level and point of view. And so you're going to have to craft your communication in a way that resonates with them. It's going to be different from how you craft the communication to resonate with others across the board upward. It's really the skills to help you manage upward. And those are the, the biggest takeaways and skills that I've learned when I went through this program.
Do you think you could manage that senior leader now?
Oh, a lot better. I learned that the various triggers, how they communicate, and I'm able to sense how leadership is reacting when I'm talking to a senior leader, and I can actually anticipate their next— the next things they're going to say, what their reactions and what that means, and have this skill in my toolset to respond and mirror what they're doing so that I can gain alignment and get their green light on whatever I'm trying to present to them and get them to agree on.
So tell the folks listening about the group and the feedback and the group setting and your experience.
I mean, I was one of those people too where I just thought like, I don't want to get into this group kumbaya environment at all. I just wanted to get direct one-on-one coaching with Lynne Levy. But because the program has that group session, I, I joined in on it and very quickly I realized that there's a, there's a lot of value in joining these group sessions. It's, we're seeing similar problems. So there's that camaraderie and that reassurance that, hey, I'm not alone. But then you're also seeing their different perspectives on how they approach solving these problems. And you're like, wow, that's a different way to look at it. I didn't even think about that. So it really opens my mind to different ways to problem solve, which as a product manager, And that's what I love. And really, as a person, you're part of managing yourself. And it's great to get different opinions and perspectives to really feed into that, that dataset, right? So you can really make informed analytical decisions. Really, thank you to Lynne Levy Levy Levy and their program for— I wouldn't be able to do it without you folks.
