Mismanaging Project Managers: Leadership

Managers, project sponsors, executives, and others who outrank project managers sometimes use their superior organizational power to intervene in the operations of projects. Last time I reviewed a few of these interventions in the hope of alerting project managers to the risks of such intervention. I continue this time with a review of those intervention tactics that are likely to affect the project managers' ability to lead their project teams.

In what follows, I use the term Senior Manager to refer to any manager or executive with organizational rank above the rank of project manager, including the project sponsor.

Bypassing the project manager to investigate or hear project team complaints

It has often been observed that the role of project manager is misnamed. What project managers actually manage is not the project, but the people of the project team. When a Senior Manager intervenes in a project by directing project team members or questioning them directly, the job of the project manager, which is already difficult, becomes much more so, verging on impossible. Similar problems arise when when Senior Managers give private hearings to complaints from project team members who are bypassing the project manager. See "The Triangulation Zone," Point Lookout for April 18, 2001, for more.

The general rule is One Project Team, One Project Manager. It's a rule that traces back in history to before the rule about "too many cooks." Senior Managers have the right and authority to replace the project manager if necessary. But trying to manage the project by bypassing the project manager doesn't work.

Demanding that every aspect of the project plan be agreed to by consensus of all members of the project team

The general rule is One Project Team, One Project
Manager. It's a rule that traces back in history to
before the rule about "too many cooks."

Senior Managers often require the right to approve of project plans. Since they usually "own" the resources that the project requires, Senior Managers can require approval of the use of those resources. But it is another matter altogether for Senior Managers to impose their preferences on the process by which plans are developed.

The reasons for this limitation on Senior Manager privileges are subtle but readily recognized by anyone who has experienced this situation. The camel's nose is a metaphor for a situation where permitting a small, seemingly innocuous act opens the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions. [Wikipedia 2025] In this case, a Senior Manager who can require one of his or her allies or vassals to be admitted as a team member can shape the project plan in all respects by requiring that the plan be developed by consensus of the team, or any portion of the team that includes the manager's favored subordinate. In effect, the project manager as a role in planning is rendered inoperative.

Relegating the project manager to a purely clerical role

Project managers do handle clerical tasks. They track action items, status of work in progress, and status of dependencies. They schedule meetings, arrange for meeting spaces and connections, and much more. But clerical duties comprise only part of the job.

They also identify risks, devise risk mitigations, recruit personnel, facilitate meetings, set meeting agendas, and devise plans. Most important, they make decisions. Senior Managers who want to control a project at a granular level can usurp the higher-level activities of the project manager role. They can direct the project manager to handle only the clerical parts of the role. To do so is, of course, foolhardy, because Senior Managers rarely have the time or talent to do both their own jobs and the job of the project manager. Moreover, it's common for a conflict of interest to arise between the project manager role and the formal role of the Senior Manager.

Because of the power imbalance between the project manager and the Senior Manager, there is little the project manager can do when a Senior Manager takes these steps, other than calling out the risks.

Forbidding the project manager and project team to converse with customers/suppliers

Exchanging information with customers and suppliers is essential for the success of any project. In any exchange, though, there is a risk of misunderstanding and confusion. When a project is important to organizational success, the combination of pressure, confusion, and politics can lead some Senior Managers to ban communications between the project manager and one or more customers and suppliers. I call this I'll-Take-It-From-Here Syndrome.

This tactic can be one of the ways a Senior Manager might use to relegate a project manager to a strictly clerical role. It is often disastrous, because the Senior Manager who acquires important information from a customer or supplier might not fully appreciate the urgency of relaying that information to the project manager.

Even more important, this kind of intervention conveys to the project team the idea that the Senior Manager has lost faith in the project manager. Once communication between the project manager and some of the customers or suppliers is banned, expecting the project manager to lead or drive any part of the project is unreasonable.

Last words

These two posts have offered examples of tactics Senior Managers can use to intervene in project operations overtly. Techniques for covert intervention are also available. For example, by arranging for someone with rare and critical skills to be assigned to Project A in advance of the green-lighting of a rival's Project B, the Senior Manager can delay or possibly obstruct the rival's Project B. And the Senior Manager who took such steps might never be found out.   First issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

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Footnotes

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