Navigating the Strategy Fog

How to thrive when direction from leadership is unclear

tl;dr: Many product teams operate with vague strategic direction from leadership. This doesn't doom your product—you can establish your own strategic guardrails. Look for signs like scattered initiatives, inflexible roadmaps, and solution-first thinking to identify when you need to create your own product strategy.

In my years as a Product Manager, strategy chaos has been a constant companion:

At one large company, leadership changed with the wind – and with each new executive came a new strategic direction. These pivotal conversations happened behind closed doors, leaving me hunting for scraps of information. The best I could find? A screenshot from a meeting I wasn't invited to.

Another time, I sat through an annual planning session where our CEO unveiled a "bold new direction" in twenty impressive slides. When it ended, the room exchanged confused glances. It sounded visionary, but what exactly were we supposed to do differently tomorrow?

Sound familiar?

In the product world, "strategy" is often treated as an almost mystical force—essential yet sometimes elusive. You hear contradictory information across different blogs, articles, and podcasts. Some say it's all about vision, others focus on execution, while some argue that strategy is just a fancy way of saying "common sense." But does it need to be as complicated as it seems?

The Strategy Vacuum Is Real (And More Common Than You Think)

Many product managers have found themselves in an uncomfortable position: tasked with delivering results while receiving only vague strategic direction from leadership. This happens for many reasons—lack of insights, fear of commitment, communication challenges, or even organizational inertia.

The absence of clear guidance raises critical questions: Where does strategy begin? Can a product succeed without clear top-down direction?

I believe the answer is yes. While top-down strategic direction can be helpful, teams can and should take ownership of defining a product strategy that aligns with a business goals that you can focus on for the time being; my team is focusing on X because of Y. The best product leaders don't wait for perfect strategic clarity—they create it themselves.

6 Red Flags and how to combat them

1. Your Team Can't Answer "Why?"

⛳️ Symptom: Blank stares when someone asks about your purpose.

If your team struggles to explain why they are working on a particular product, feature, or initiative, you have a clarity problem. A strong product strategy provides a guiding purpose that aligns with business objectives and user needs. Without it, teams drift aimlessly, leading to wasted effort and misaligned priorities.

✅Fix: Start with a clear problem statement. Why does this product or feature exist? What pain points are you solving? Establish a clear north star metric that ties back to user and business value.

2. You're Playing Initiative Whack-a-Mole

⛳️Symptom: The team is juggling too many OKRs without meaningful progress on any.

If your team is spread thin across multiple objectives, struggling to gain traction, or constantly pivoting based on the latest leadership request, you're experiencing strategic scatter. This often leads to half-baked solutions and minimal impact.

✅Fix: Define a clear set of priorities. Instead of chasing multiple objectives, focus on one or two key bets that align with the overall business strategy. Clearly communicate trade-offs and ensure leadership is aligned.

3. Your Roadmap Is Written in Stone

⛳️Symptom: The team is robotically working through a pre-determined backlog.

A rigid backlog is a sign that your team is executing without questioning whether the work still makes sense. A good strategy is dynamic; it evolves based on feedback and market conditions. It's important for framing your next bit and also showing how what you're arguing for contrasts with lack of direction chaos from leadership

✅Fix: Encourage a problem-first mindset rather than a solution-first approach. Regularly revisit priorities and validate assumptions before blindly following a roadmap. Emphasize learning over execution.

4. The Loudest Voice Wins

⛳️Symptom: Decisions happen because "the CEO said so" or based on whoever has the most forceful personality. Without a product strategy, prioritisation becomes chaotic. Teams may find themselves reacting to executive requests rather than making data-driven decisions that serve users and the business.

✅Fix: Establish a decision-making framework like impact mapping or Opportunity Solution Tree. Use these frameworks to ensure decisions are based on impact rather than hierarchy or politics.

5. You're Shipping Features, Not Outcomes

⛳️Symptom: The team celebrates releases, not results.

Building features for the sake of shipping work is a common trap. Without a strategic focus on outcomes, teams risk delivering products that don't move the needle for users or the business.

✅Fix: Shift the focus from "what are we building?" to "what problem are we solving?" Define clear success metrics and measure impact, not just delivery.

6. Solutions Come Before Opportunities

⛳️Symptom: Teams jump straight to building without understanding the problem space.

A product strategy should be driven by deep customer insight and market understanding. If teams jump straight to solutions without proper discovery, they risk delivering the wrong thing—efficiently.

✅Fix: Invest in discovery practices such as user research, problem framing workshops, and competitive analysis. Define hypotheses and test them before committing resources.

Final Thoughts

Strategy doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to be intentional. Without it, teams risk falling into reactive cycles, chasing the latest shiny object, and ultimately failing to create real impact.

So, if you find yourself in an environment where product strategy feels ambiguous, take the initiative. Define your purpose, align your efforts, and create a strategic path forward.

Your team (and your users) will thank you for cutting through the fog with strategic clarity—even if you had to create it yourself.