Project sponsors are often appointed for their operational credibility, not for their readiness to lead change under uncertainty. Five questions distinguish accidental sponsorship from deliberate sponsorship, and explain why sponsor capability now sits at the heart of effective project leadership.
In many organisations, sponsorship is assigned by role, seniority or proximity to impact. Leaders are trusted, accountable for outcomes and expected to provide direction when it matters most. Yet many find themselves in an accidental sponsorship role without a clear, usable way to understand how the project they are sponsoring is actually meant to create change.
As delivery environments tighten, that gap between accountability and understanding becomes a risk to manage. When fewer projects are approved, scrutiny is higher and early decisions carry greater consequence – and errors are difficult or costly to reverse.
Effective sponsorship is no longer about presence or authority alone. The move from accidental to deliberate sponsor depends on whether leaders can answer a small number of fundamental questions that shape how decisions are made under uncertainty.
These five questions are a practical test of whether a sponsor understands the logic of the change they are responsible for leading. These questions are also explored in more depth in our Executive Sponsor Checklist, designed to help sponsors examine how they are actually leading change under uncertainty.
Question 1: Can you clearly explain how this project creates value, and which parts of the scope actually drive the benefit?
A project plan, business case or set of status reports is not the same as understanding what a project is intended to deliver. Sponsors who are effective under pressure can explain, in their own words, how effort is expected to turn into benefit.
This understanding is often described as the project’s theory of change – the logic that connects investment to outcomes. It reflects how the project’s objectives depend on specific changes, how those changes are expected to occur and which elements of scope are most critical to success.
When that logic is unclear, decision-making becomes detached from value creation. Trade-offs are made without understanding their consequences, and confidence is built on reassurance rather than reasoning. Over time, this is how sponsors find themselves accountable for outcomes they can no longer clearly explain, defend or achieve.
Question 2: How much certainty do you need before you’re willing to make a decision, and what does that cost the project?
Projects rarely offer complete information, particularly early in delivery. Uncertainty is not a temporary condition to be resolved before progress can begin. It’s a permanent feature of most projects.
Sponsors who struggle under pressure often respond by seeking more plans, more options or greater detail before committing to a direction. While this feels like taking responsible action, it frequently delays decisions without materially improving the quality of information that decisions will ultimately be based on. Time and budget are consumed in the search for certainty that is rarely achievable.
Experienced project leaders understand that if a project drifts off course early, it becomes increasingly difficult to recover later. Early indecision builds just as quickly as early mistakes.
Effective sponsors recognise the difference between certainty and confidence. Their role is not to prove that a decision is risk-free, but to make the best possible call based on what is known at the time, the assumptions being made and the risks that can reasonably be foreseen.
Delivery progress is often confused with momentum. Continuous planning and re-planning – hypothesising options, resplicing work, recalculating costs and reassessing timelines – can keep teams extremely busy. Activity increases, but progress does not.
It’s like being on a train in a dark tunnel. You can’t see what is passing outside, but you can feel motion and vibration, so it feels as though progress is being made. Without visibility, though, it is impossible to judge speed or direction.
When decisions are delayed in the pursuit of perfect analysis and zero ambiguity, teams generate a great deal of momentum. What they do not generate is forward progress.
Question 3: Are you actively steering this project, or are you being updated by it?
Effective sponsorship is active, not passive. One of the clearest signals of accidental sponsorship is a lack of informed challenge.
Sponsors who struggle under pressure often arrive at steering forums to receive updates, rather than to shape decisions. They may ask questions, but too late to influence direction, or they rely on reassurance because they are unsure what to probe.
Knowing what to question requires an understanding of how the project is meant to work. Which assumptions does delivery depend on? Which constraints genuinely threaten outcomes, and which ones matter less than they appear? These are questions that need to be asked early, while options are still open.
Effective sponsors do not allow themselves to be “managed” by the project. They arrive informed, probe for root causes when explanations feel thin, and help teams navigate obstacles by bringing a broader organisational perspective.
They make time for one-on-one conversations with the project manager, take on difficult updates without defensiveness and thank people for sharing all news – including the uncomfortable kind. They understand that complex, and particularly transformative, initiatives rarely unfold exactly to plan.
In doing so, they keep attention focused on what is truly material, and prevent time and energy being consumed by issues that distract from the outcomes that matter.
Question 4: When you say you’re confident this project will be successful, what is that confidence actually based on?
Optimism plays an important role in project leadership. Belief in the value of an initiative helps build momentum and sustain energy, as well as aligning stakeholders through periods of uncertainty. A positive mindset can be the difference between success or failure when faced with challenges and obstacles.
The risk arises when confidence, and optimism, isn’t grounded in logic. It’s always possible for any given project to succeed. The more important question for sponsors is whether success is probable given the assumptions being made, the sequence of work planned and the risks that remain unresolved.
Confidence is built through understanding how scope is expected to create benefit, which assumptions must hold true and which risks can realistically be mitigated. Pressure testing the logic chain ensures it is as robust as possible, based on what is and isn’t known. It allows sponsors to explain not just what is happening, but why continuing, adjusting or stopping makes sense.
Difficult decisions are often deferred when confidence is based primarily on optimism. We see reassurance in belief replacing proper analysis, with risk accumulating until options narrow. Sponsors who ground confidence in logic, by contrast, know which levers they can pull (and when) to protect outcomes.
Question 5: Are you actively exercising sponsorship as a delivery control, or primarily acting as an approver and spokesperson?
Project sponsorship is one of the organisation’s primary delivery controls. It shapes decision quality, risk posture and the organisation’s ability to commit to a direction under uncertainty. When sponsorship capability is weak, governance becomes reactive rather than deliberate.
Many organisations respond to delivery risk by adding reporting layers or formal checkpoints. However, these layers do not act as protections. Rather, they filter and distil information until the top leaders receive a carefully curated view of what others want them to see. These mechanisms don’t compensate for a sponsor who is unable to actively test assumptions, challenge explanations or keep decisions anchored to outcomes and benefits. A sponsor needs to be close to what is happening in the project, not levels above.
Treating sponsor capability as a risk control changes the conversation. It moves attention from authority to judgement, and from formal approval to decision logic. In constrained environments, this is one of the highest-leverage investments organisations can make to reduce exposure and protect outcomes.
From accidental to deliberate project sponsorship
Organisations will continue to create accidental sponsors as senior leaders inherit sponsorship responsibilities as part of their role. The risk lies in leaving those leaders unsupported in a role that now carries far greater consequence than it once did.
These five questions provide a practical starting point. They help sponsors assess whether they are leading change deliberately or simply overseeing activity. When those questions cannot be answered with confidence, the organisation is carrying more delivery risk than it may realise.
Download our Executive Sponsor Checklist to explore these questions in more depth. The guide is designed to support sponsors as they step into increasingly complex delivery environments. For organisations looking to strengthen sponsorship capability more broadly, we also work with leadership teams to build practical, decision-focused sponsorship capability.
