In recent experience the PMs I have worked with have primarily concerned themselves with the desires of executives. Literally all the other responsibilities you mentioned were handled by others.
Yes. But this is because we have organizations where people survive by placating the higher-ups instead of producing value to the product and their team. Hence, these people survive.
It's human nature to find the best way to survive so we can't really blame these PMs for doing what they need to keep their job. Suck up to the people that will ultimately give them their paycheck.
The issue isn't the PM or shitty employees that aren't producing actual value, the issue is with the ego of the higher ups that rather keep people that agree with them on all things than have people who will constantly challenge them.
I have seen many CxOs (that aren't founders) who are very good at befriending the founders and thus they are more prone to survive. They are not necessarily doing anything useful to move the needle though, so this gives people the impression that the best thing you can do to survive is just be liked by the higher ups. Telling founders that they are wrong on a day to day basis because you work so closely with users and the engineering team, is not a good way to keep your job. If you are very smart maybe you can navigate this in a way that works, for awhile.
If my point is muddled, I'm saying that if you have a shitty PM it's because of the organization that employs people and keeps people based on the wrong criteria. Good leaders aren't threatened by getting challenged or feel the need to constantly get their egos validated.
Or maybe I'm wrong there too and it's just human nature to want to keep people that you always get along with.
Yes, and this is exactly when you have ineffective PMs, and senior leadership isn't paying attention.
With a good product and design team, I have been part of engineering teams that have 5 engineers than can do the work of 20, without working overtime, consistently deliver, and rarely, have to implement anything twice.
The difference between effective product and not is absolutely night and day. The best analogy is driving a modern car, vs driving a modern car without vehicle stability, anti-skid, power steering, automatic transmission, or AC. Sure you absolutely can drive it, but after a while you will need way more breaks than those who have all the nice features, and won't roll over in bad situations.
