What if your CEO is just a kid in a sandbox?
Your CEO is desperate for a true thought partner, and as Head of Product, you're already positioned to be one. The shift starts with trust.
What if your CEO is just a kid in a sandbox, trying to build something and wishing someone would come play?
Most Heads of Product don't realize this: the CEO is desperate for a true thought partner. While I've been a founder, I've never wanted to be a CEO because it is the loneliest job on the planet.
The lucky ones have a trusted Board member, a few strong Advisors, maybe a coach. But none of those people are in the trenches, and they don't have the day-to-day context to wrestle with strategy and hard decisions.
Meanwhile, you, dear Head of Product, are already looking across the whole business. That's part of the job. You need buy-in from every department, which means you understand every department.
Especially when you've evolved from aligning stakeholders to influencing them. From supporting strategy to helping direct it.
You're a perfect complement to the CEO. Yet too often this partnership gets off track, especially with founder-CEOs who used to run product themselves. Maybe they micromanage because they fear they can't let go. Or they disengage because they're figuring out how to be a CEO.
Either way, the conversations with your CEO shrink to status updates and roadmap reviews. Not the real, soul-testing work of building a company together.
Your CEO wants a partner
Here's what I want you to see: your CEO wants a partner. They just don't always know how to ask for one. And you don't realize you're already it.
The shift? Start with building trust, and your own readiness to lead alongside rather than beneath. Step beyond "your lane."
Most importantly, have compassion for how isolating and heavy the CEO role can be.
You're already in the sandbox. Build that castle together.
This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.