Toxic Project Managers and Leadership Lessons.

What a Toxic Project Manager Actually Costs a Team

Here’s the deal. Early in my career, I worked under genuinely excellent superintendents at Hensel Phelps, a company I still love deeply. On two different projects, though, the project managers I reported to were toxic in a very specific, classical business management kind of way, and the damage that caused went well beyond a bad personality. I want to be direct about what that experience actually taught me, without dwelling on any individual, because the lesson matters more than the person.

Understaffed, Overworked, and Left to Figure It Out

On one of those projects, the job was genuinely understaffed. The general superintendent was pulled in multiple directions at once and often not closely engaged with what was actually happening day to day. That left an enormous amount of coordination work falling onto the field engineers, office engineers, and project engineers on site, myself included, well beyond what any of us should reasonably have been carrying alone.

I remember being exhausted, genuinely worn down from the sheer volume of work stacked onto too few people. During an actual lunch break, I put my head down on my desk to close my eyes for a few minutes. I was called into an office and reprimanded directly for it. When I pointed out that this had happened during a legitimate lunch break, the response I got back was dismissive, essentially suggesting that construction simply did not have lunch breaks in the first place. That moment, not Hensel Phelps itself, was what made me decide to leave that specific team.

Sit with that exchange for a second. The actual problem on that project was never a field engineer resting his eyes for a few minutes during a break he had genuinely earned. The actual problem was a staffing and workload situation severe enough that reaching that point of exhaustion had become possible in the first place. Punishing the symptom while ignoring the cause is exactly the kind of leadership failure that quietly drives good people out of an otherwise strong company.

What a Project Manager’s Job Actually Is

Looking back on that experience now, especially after working directly with a number of genuine industry experts to write a book specifically about what construction project management should actually look like, I see clearly what was missing. A project manager’s real job is to build the team, connect with people directly and personally, and take responsibility rather than default to blame. It means building a genuine system that prevents a field engineer from ever becoming so depleted that closing their eyes during an actual break becomes necessary just to keep functioning.

Watch for these signs a project is running on classical business management thinking rather than genuine team leadership.

• A jobsite consistently understaffed relative to the actual volume of coordination work required.
• Exhaustion among field engineers or office staff treated as a normal cost of doing business rather than a genuine warning sign.
• Leadership more focused on personal recognition or outside pursuits than on actually engaging with the project day to day.

Why This Pattern Deserves to Be Named Directly

I do not enjoy being critical like this, and I want to be clear that everything here reflects my own experience and my own opinion, not an accusation of any specific wrongdoing. But the pattern itself is worth naming plainly, because it shows up far too often across this industry. Condescending leadership. A tendency to blame the team rather than build it. A classical business management mindset that quietly prioritizes appearances and personal significance over the actual, unglamorous work of supporting the people on a project.

That pattern rarely announces itself directly. It shows up instead in small decisions made repeatedly over months, a staffing request denied, a coaching conversation skipped, a moment of genuine struggle met with correction instead of support. None of those individual moments looks dramatic on its own. Stacked together, they add up to exactly the kind of environment that eventually pushes a genuinely capable person out the door.

I would not give a nickel for a project manager operating that way, no matter how polished they might look from the outside.

The Contrast That Actually Changed My Career

Compare that to the very first project manager and superintendent I ever worked under. They were genuinely kind, supportive, and invested in me as a person, going out of their way to offer real personal coaching and help me grow. That contrast is what ultimately shaped how I think about leadership today. The difference between those two experiences was not talent or credentials. It was whether the person leading actually saw building the team as the job, rather than something that happened to be in the way of it.

Both of those leaders were operating inside the exact same industry, often under similarly demanding schedules and real budget pressure. The circumstances were not what separated them. Their actual priorities were, and that is genuinely good news, because it means this is a choice available to any leader willing to make it, regardless of how difficult a given project happens to be.

Watch for these signs a leader is genuinely investing in building their team rather than simply managing it.

• Real, personal coaching offered proactively, not only when a problem has already surfaced.
• Staffing levels that reflect an honest assessment of actual coordination workload, not an assumption that people will simply absorb the gap.
• A leader who is present and engaged with the day to day project, not primarily focused on external recognition elsewhere.

Why This Still Matters for Every Project Manager Today

Eventually, I found my way back to Hensel Phelps, once I had genuinely gotten away from that specific toxic environment, and went on to build a career there that I am still deeply proud of. That experience left me with a permanent, clear standard for what a project manager’s role genuinely is, and what it never should be.

I share this not to relitigate old grievances, but because that early standard shaped nearly everything I have built since, the training programs, the books, the coaching work. Every one of them traces back, in some way, to a simple decision made early in my career never to lead a team the way I once watched a team get led.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your organization build genuine project management leadership, staffing decisions grounded in real workload, and a culture where building the team is treated as the actual job, rather than something that gets in the way of looking good elsewhere.

So here is the challenge. Look honestly at your own project’s staffing levels against the real coordination workload your field and office engineers are currently carrying. If exhaustion has quietly become normalized as simply how the job goes, that is exactly where genuine leadership needs to step back in.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “I wouldn’t give a nickel for a classical business management project manager.” Build your team instead, and the rest of the job gets genuinely easier for everyone carrying it.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does understaffing a project count as a leadership failure rather than simply a budget decision?

Because understaffing shifts an unreasonable coordination burden onto the people already on site, field engineers and office staff who then have to absorb work well beyond their actual role. Leadership is responsible for recognizing when workload has exceeded what a team can reasonably sustain and adjusting staffing accordingly, rather than treating chronic exhaustion as an acceptable cost of running a lean project.

Why does the article treat a reprimand over resting during a legitimate break as more than an isolated incident?

Because it reflects a broader mindset that treats basic human needs, rest, recovery, and legitimate break time, as somehow incompatible with construction work. That mindset tends to accompany the same classical business management thinking that prioritizes appearances and output over genuinely supporting the people doing the work, which is why a single incident like this often points to a much larger cultural problem.

What is the actual difference between managing a team and building one?

Managing a team typically focuses on directing tasks and monitoring output, while building a team involves genuine investment in people, coaching, real staffing decisions that account for actual workload, and personal engagement with how the team is actually doing. The article argues that building the team is the real job of a project manager, and that managing without building tends to produce exactly the exhaustion and disengagement described here.