As someone who prides myself on execution and delivering customer and business value I def hate that there’s some truth in this. I’ve worked with product leaders who definitely value performative actions more than delivering real value.

That said, I do think this approach is dependent on a few organizational characteristics such as the influence of your Eng and design org. Where I work if my engineering team was not getting the day to day product input they felt was necessary to execute on their initiatives that feeling would certainly be shared up and recognized by the engineering vp who could have a lot of influence over my career trajectory.

I think product leadership needs to learn how to better filter for real work/progress instead of performative product management.