What kind of PM do you want yourself to be known as?

“What kind of PM do you want yourself to be known as here at Gojek?” This is a question my manager asked during a 1-1 I had with him a year back.

My answer to his question as far as I remember was “Someone who has a high bias for action, good with data, and design”.

His follow up question to that was “What are you doing this quarter to justify that reputation?”

TBH I had not thought much about it. If I wanted to be known as a PM with a great eye for design, were my projects reflecting that? If I wanted to be known as a data-driven PM, what were the key insights I uncovered which justified that reputation? 

Most of us just pass through our career never bothering to build a reputation as someone who is good with X. Forget building a reputation, we don’t even bother questioning what aspects of a role we want to be really good at.

Most people would think of this as an exercise to answer this question well during interviews. I think it is much more important than that. It is the answer you want others to tell about you too!