How Parenting Made Me a Better Product Leader (with Anuj Jhunjhunwala, Director of Product at Merge)

The Product Manager

Becoming a parent profoundly changes how you approach product leadership, blending personal and professional challenges in unexpected ways. Anuj Jhunjhunwala, Director of Product at Merge, shares how parenting teaches lessons in influence without authority, clear communication, and time management that directly apply to leading products.

Anuj offers candid insights on how managing toddlers parallels managing stakeholders, why career growth feels more like navigating a mountain than climbing a ladder, and the paradoxes that trip up many product managers today. This conversation reveals the surprising overlaps between parenting and product leadership, offering fresh perspectives for anyone balancing both worlds.

Resources from this episode:

• Subscribe to The Product Manager newsletter
• Connect with Anuj on LinkedIn
• Check out Merge

Chapters

1. How Parenting Made Me a Better Product Leader (with Anuj Jhunjhunwala, Director of Product at Merge) (00:00:00)

2. Parenting and Product Leadership: Unexpected Lessons (00:01:23)

3. Influencing Without Authority: Lessons from Parenting (00:05:48)

4. Paradoxes in Product Management (00:10:30)

5. Career Growth: A Non-Linear Journey (00:11:33)

6. Navigating Modern Attention Spans (00:16:07)

7. Efficiency and Outcomes: The Impact of Parenting (00:19:35)

8. Small vs. Large Companies: Pros and Cons (00:24:27)