What Executives Wish Project Managers Would Stop Doing

One of the funniest things about project management is that PMs and executives often care about exactly the same things — but you’d never know it based on the way they talk to each other.

PMs want to deliver successful outcomes. Executives want predictable results. Yet somewhere between the Gantt charts and the steering committee updates, a pretty big gap opens up. And inside that gap are several habits executives wish PMs would just… stop. Not because PMs are doing anything wrong, but because these habits make it harder for leaders to quickly understand what’s going on and make smart decisions.

Executives live in a world where time is brutally limited. Their responsibility stretches across budgets, strategy, risk, operational performance, and dozens of people all wanting something from them. So when a PM shows up with a long, complicated update full of painful details and technical terminology, it can feel like the meeting is working against their ability to stay focused. The project might be going perfectly fine, but the communication style makes it feel far more complex than it needs to be.

One thing that consistently frustrates executives is when a project update turns into a wall of data. PMs are deep in the weeds all day — of course they see the details. But executives simply don’t have the bandwidth to absorb everything the team has touched since the last meeting. What they want is the story: What changed? What matters? What’s at risk? What decisions are needed? Everything else is noise. When PMs shift from reporting “what happened” to explaining “what it means,” executives feel far more confident and far less overwhelmed.

Another pain point comes from how we use status colors. To PMs, red-yellow-green is just a quick summary. To executives, it’s a signal of whether they need to worry. The problem is that the colors often don’t match reality. Some PMs keep everything green until the wheels come off. Others use yellow as a soft placeholder for “I think something’s wrong but I don’t want to say it yet.” Executives want honesty early — even if the situation is still developing. A project turning red isn’t the problem. A project turning red late is the problem.

When an executive says they want more details, what they are asking for is more clarity.

PMs have their own language: dependencies, resource leveling, burndown, critical path, throughput. Executives don’t live in that world, and they don’t want to. They just want clarity. When a PM explains an issue plainly, without layers of terminology, leaders can make faster decisions because they’re not mentally translating anything. Simple language makes you look more confident, not less. It tells executives you understand the situation well enough to describe it clearly.

Then there’s the difference between activity and impact. PMs often talk about how busy the team is — who’s working on what, who’s behind, who’s waiting on whom. But executives aren’t judging the project on how many hours the team spent grinding this week. They judge it on whether those hours actually moved the project closer to the finish line. They want to know what changed for the better. What progressed. Where there’s traction. A team can be incredibly busy and still be stuck. Executives can spot that disconnect from a mile away.

Another habit that executives really wish PMs would drop is showing up with a problem but no recommendation. Even when the answer is complicated or imperfect, leaders want to hear your take. They want guidance. They want to know how you think the issue should be handled. When a PM presents the problem and then just waits, it puts all the pressure on the executive to figure it out — and that’s exactly what they don’t have time for. A thoughtful recommendation, even if it leads to discussion or revision, demonstrates ownership. It shows leadership, not just coordination.

And finally, executives really dislike when bad news gets saved for the last slide. They’d much rather have you open the meeting with the truth, even if it’s tough. It shows trust. It shows maturity. And most importantly, it gives them time to actually talk through solutions rather than getting hit with a surprise right before they need to leave for their next meeting. Honesty early is one of the fastest ways to earn long-term credibility.

At the end of the day, executives aren’t asking PMs to be different people. They’re asking us to communicate differently. Less noise, more clarity. Less detail, more meaning. Less activity, more progress. What they really want is a PM who thinks like an owner — someone who can translate the project into simple, actionable information they can use to guide the business. When PMs do that, executives stop seeing them as task trackers and start seeing them as strategic partners.