Customer-Centric or Vision-Centric Product Development?
The success of a product or service depends on how well it meets people’s expectations compared to competing offers. In times of growth, this question often feels less urgent. But when markets tighten, it becomes critical to examine how product decisions are made—and on what basis.
In our work, we’ve seen two very different leadership dynamics that shape how companies drive change: vision-centric and customer-centric. A simple test to tell the difference: Does your team move forward with initiatives even when they don’t believe in their success?
“Don’t seek to please your boss. Seek to do what is best for the company.”
Vision-Centric Development: Inspiration and Risk Hand in Hand
Steve Jobs’ leadership style is the classic example of a visionary-driven organization. Here, the company’s offering depends heavily on what the leader imagines and wants to create. Much like a film director shaping raw material into a final work, the visionary has a say in nearly every decision.
Such leaders are often charismatic and inspiring. Their decision-making style is straightforward: they decide. They don’t explain their reasoning—they issue clear instructions. Because organizations tend to be hierarchical, these decisions are carried out even when experts on the team believe they’re flawed. When the visionary is right, the team moves forward quickly, even without full buy-in. But when they’re wrong, the organisation struggles to correct course—often requiring a change in leadership to recover.
Vision-centric leadership is often justified by success stories of individuals who “changed the world.” Yet these stories are distorted by:
Survivor bias – we hear about the few winners, not the many who failed.
Timing – many successes are linked to fortunate circumstances rather than brilliance.
Overshadowed teams – crucial contributions from others often go unrecognised.
The assumption that past success equals future foresight is risky. A clear vision is vital, but executing it requires more flexibility than most visionaries are willing to allow.
Customer-Centric Development: Results Through Direct Knowledge
Customer-centric leadership, by contrast, focuses on constantly adapting and refining the value proposition. Leaders guide the big picture but don’t claim to be oracles. Product development happens through hypotheses and experiments: “We think this feature might work—let’s test and find out.”
Decisions are shaped by conversations—both with customers and within the team. The keyword is consensus. Teams make choices together, informed by data, qualitative feedback, and user testing.
Where vision-centric organizations give the leader all the information and the team a set of instructions, customer-centric organizations share knowledge broadly. Everyone’s perspective becomes a potential source of insight. Mistakes, experiments, and learning are expected. The leader doesn’t need all the answers—only the ability to create a system where the best answers emerge.
Netflix’s culture book No Rules Rules describes this as “context, not control.” Senior leaders provide resources and challenges, but decisions are made where the best expertise resides. The more layers in the chain, the harder it is to make good decisions from the top down—or to be confident that changes are solving real problems. That’s why decisions must be made not where the budget sits, but where the clearest understanding of the problem exists.
Visionary or Open Leader? Ideally Both.
In reality, few organizations are purely one or the other. The most successful combine a clear vision with systematic customer feedback. They can hold a strong strategic course while continuously adjusting tactics based on what they learn from users.
The key is building an environment where it’s safe to make mistakes, learn, and challenge ideas—even the leader’s. Because visions can be wrong. And customers inevitably change.
Three Quick Self-Tests for Leaders
Can your team say: “I don’t think this will work”—and be heard?
Are your product decisions driven by data, dialogue, or gut feeling?
How does your organisation react when a product fails in the market?
If you feel your organisation needs to become more customer-centric—or sharpen its vision to stand out—let’s talk. We facilitate workshops that focus on product decision-making dynamics and strategic choices that shape long-term success.