At 21, your title is just meaningless words to sucker you into working longer hours. The unfortunate thing for the author is that he thinks he's learned something about being a good PM, but he's really just learned how to be a good junior; "listen to the experts and leave your ego at the door".<p>To me a product manager needs to have vision and empathy. Vision, to know where the product needs to be in 5 years. And empathy to be able to truly understand your users needs. From the article, it doesn't sound like the author learned these things.
I feel so stupid growing older and remember that I used to think and express myself like him (in this subject). Youth is totally overrated, at tech, arts, sports...
Calling a "product manager" a "strategic leader" is a bit of an exaggeration. At most tech companies, entry-level software engineers are on the same "level" in the corporate hierarchy as "product managers," and product managers aren't "managers" in the same sense that they are managers of people -- they actually don't have anyone under them, they are only managers of the product itself.<p>Yes, in some sense, everybody is a strategic leader -- even engineers at big companies, but this argument is really just a pleasantry.