Leading with North Stars: Aligning People, Purpose, and Metrics

Introduction

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from leading cross-functional teams, it’s this: clarity beats certainty. You won’t always have all the answers, but if everyone understands the direction—the “North Star"—they can move forward with confidence.

North Star thinking has been one of the most powerful tools in my product leadership toolkit. It helps align strategy with execution, goals with behavior, and purpose with metrics.

Here’s how I use it to bring teams together and build momentum that lasts.

Why North Stars Matter

In fast-paced environments, teams can easily get lost in the weeds. Shipping for the sake of shipping. Measuring things that don’t really move the needle. That’s where a North Star comes in.

A North Star Metric (NSM) is more than just a KPI. It’s a unifying, meaningful measure of success that reflects the value you create for users. For Spotify, it might be “time spent listening.” For Airbnb, it’s nights booked. For us, it was “successful onboarding journeys completed.”

The power of a good NSM is that it helps everyone make better decisions, faster.

Creating Alignment Across Roles

One of the challenges in cross-functional work is making sure everyone’s pulling in the same direction. Engineers think in systems. Designers in flows. Marketers in campaigns. Product managers in problems.

The North Star bridges these perspectives. It becomes a shared reference point. Suddenly, instead of debating what to build next, the question becomes: "What helps us move closer to our North Star?"

This shift alone changes the conversation.

OKRs as Fuel, Not Red Tape

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) often get a bad rep. Done wrong, they’re bureaucratic and demotivating. But paired with a strong North Star, OKRs become your feedback loop. They help you zoom in while still staying aligned with the big picture.

In my teams, we treat OKRs as experiments. We ask: "What do we believe will move the North Star?" Then we test, measure, and learn.

Focus Creates Autonomy

Ironically, the clearer the goal, the more freedom your team has. When people know where they’re going, they don’t need micromanagement. They can find their own path—as long as the destination is clear.

I’ve seen junior product owners step into leadership roles simply because they understood the North Star and were trusted to explore how to reach it.

This kind of autonomy creates accountability, growth, and real momentum.

North Stars in Practice

At Fonds Finanz, our team redefined onboarding by rallying around one goal: reduce friction in the first 7 days of a broker’s journey. That simple focus aligned product, design, and dev around improving UX, cutting drop-offs, and reducing support tickets.

In 3 months, we boosted onboarding completion by 22% and unlocked over €1M in new ARR. All because we had a single, shared direction.

Closing Thought

In leadership, you don’t need to know everything. But you do need to make the direction unmistakably clear. A strong North Star gives your team something to aim for—and a reason to care.

It doesn’t guarantee success, but it guarantees movement. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to build something great.