In SME engineering and technically led organisations, project leadership often falls to Technology, Engineering, or Operations Directors when the Project Director role is not clearly defined or filled.

Projects are won. Teams are assembled. Delivery begins.

Yet behind the scenes, the routes for making or escalating decisions, engaging stakeholders and tackling issues may not be clear. The plan may sit on Gantt charts, but there may be little consideration of the breadth of responsibilities those leaders carry, or clarity about which leader will step in when several workstreams overlap.

When leadership is unclear, even the best plans, project governance frameworks and project management systems struggle to deliver consistent outcomes.

The commercial cost can be significant.

Decisions take longer, project managers become uncertain about authority, risks sit too low in the organisation, variations are missed, and margins come under pressure. Clients lose confidence when the business appears reactive, fragmented or slow to respond.

That is one reason project leadership deserves more attention. The Association for Project Management’s (APM) Golden Thread research found that the UK project profession employed around 2.32 million full-time equivalent workers in 2024 and contributed £186.8 billion annually to the UK economy. Project work is a major part of how businesses create value, and SMEs are part of that picture, even when they do not describe themselves as project-led organisations.

This article explores what effective project leadership looks like beyond governance frameworks and schedules, who usually carries that responsibility in SME engineering businesses, and what this means for project managers, directors and growing teams.

Who usually leads projects in SME engineering businesses?

Thinking about the range of clients we work with, project leadership in SMEs usually falls to one of three roles, depending on the organisational structure and sector.

The Operations Director or COO is often responsible for overall delivery performance, resource allocation and client satisfaction. In many SMEs, this role carries ultimate accountability for whether projects succeed or fail commercially.

The Engineering Director or Chief Technology Officer may assume a leadership role in engineering, procurement, and construction environments where technical authority is central. Engineering Directors often influence delivery decisions, particularly where design risk and technical complexity are high.

The Managing Director, Chief Executive or Owner may also lead directly, especially when key client relationships are involved or when the project is commercially important to the business.

What is consistent is that leadership is sometimes shared, often informally, between different directors. This can work well in smaller teams, especially when the leadership team can make decisions on behalf of each other if one person is absent.

As organisations grow, this becomes harder to sustain.

Clear ownership means decisions are made faster. With a specified project leader, other directors can focus on their wider responsibilities and on running the business. Project managers know who to call on when navigating stakeholders with different expectations.

This is where project leadership becomes less about hierarchy and more about clarity.

Does the Managing Director need to be involved in every project decision, or does that leave them overstretched and create delays across the project? Does the Operations Director have the authority to make commercial calls, or do decisions keep moving back to the owner? Does the project manager know when they are expected to lead and when to escalate?

These questions matter because project leadership is often where growth pressure first shows.

A typical scenario

Picture a specialist engineering SME that designs and fabricates access platforms, pipe bridges and small mechanical handling frames for water treatment and process plants.

The business has grown through good relationships and strong technical work. The Managing Director still holds the main client relationship. The Engineering Director is the person everyone trusts for design. The Operations Director is trying to keep fabrication, subcontract finishing, site installation and commissioning moving. The project manager is capable, but still developing commercial confidence.

A client asks for a small change to the handrail height and toe-board arrangement on a platform around a dosing skid. It sounds minor, so the designer makes the adjustment and fabrication continues. The project manager assumes it can be dealt with later because everyone wants to keep the job moving.

Two weeks later, the revised arrangement affects fabrication details, fixing points, delivery sequencing and site access. The installer says the platform now clashes with temporary pipework. The client sees it as part of normal coordination. Internally, nobody is quite sure whether the issue belongs with engineering, operations, commercial or the project manager.

By the time the discussion reaches the right person, the project has lost time, the commercial record is weak and the project manager has learned to wait for senior direction next time.

That is the kind of situation where project leadership matters. It is rarely dramatic at first and often shows up in small, technical, slightly awkward moments where unclear ownership creates delay, cost and frustration.

The signs that project leadership is under strain

Many SME leaders recognise the effect before they can clearly describe the cause.

The business may be winning better work, taking on larger projects, managing more clients, or stepping into a more demanding tier of delivery. On paper, this is growth, yet in practice, it can expose gaps in leadership, structure and confidence.

Common signs include:

• Project managers keep coming back to directors for decisions they should be able to make.
• Reporting exists, but it does not give leaders enough confidence to act.
• Commercial issues are spotted late or handled inconsistently.
• Project meetings feel busy but do not always move the work forward.
• Leaders are pulled into operational detail when they should be shaping direction.
• Good people are working hard, but ownership across the team remains unclear.
• Clients are starting to ask more questions because confidence in delivery has declined.

These are not usually people problems in the narrow sense. In most SMEs, people are capable, committed, and hardworking.

The issue is often that the business has outgrown the informal leadership model that helped it get to where it is.

This connects closely with a wider challenge for SME project teams. In Coron’s article on Why project manager development for SME Engineering teams needs a rethink, we explore how development needs to move beyond qualifications and into the real situations project managers face under pressure. The same point applies here. Project leadership is learned in live decisions, awkward conversations and moments where people need to take ownership, not just in a classroom.

Project governance and systems: structured or stretched?

Project governance frameworks are designed as the backbone of sustainable delivery. They provide clarity on decision-making, accountability and escalation routes. Their use across SMEs is mixed.

Some organisations invest early in structured project management systems with an overarching governance approach. They define processes, establish reporting standards and create consistent ways of working across projects. These systems support leadership by providing visibility and control.

Many SMEs evolve organically. They grow when contract opportunities come up, after winning one or two major clients, and they build their processes around those relationships. Their systems are developed in response to immediate needs, not designed to support a long-term strategy.

Over time, this can lead to a patchwork of tools, spreadsheets and informal processes.

Initially, this works because capable individuals are driving delivery and relationships are strong. As the business scales, cracks begin to appear:

• Reporting becomes inconsistent.
• Data is stored in different filing systems.
• Leaders planning the resources lack visibility.
• Decisions rely on individuals rather than systems.
• Project managers spend time chasing information rather than leading delivery.

This places additional pressure on the leadership team and often falls back on the Managing Director, with the expectation that they will answer everything.

Leaders then get drawn into operational detail. They spend time reconciling information, resolving misaligned workstreams and reacting when issues and risks arise.

What is often less visible, and what drives the need for stronger systems, is the commercial layer.

Governance is about more than reporting progress. It is about understanding how project decisions affect cost, margin and contractual position. Project teams may focus on meeting milestones without fully understanding the commercial implications of their decisions.

APM’s Conditions for Project Success identifies project planning and review, clear goals and objectives, effective governance, competent project teams and commitment to success as the five factors with the strongest and most consistent relationship to traditional measures of project success. That is useful for SMEs because it reinforces the need for structure, capability and leadership to work together.

Over time, weak connection between delivery and commercial awareness can lead to lower margins, missed contract variations, unmanaged risk and unnecessary pressure on the leadership team.

Weak systems increase the leadership burden. Strong governance and systems create structured conditions for leaders to lead well.

Strong project leadership ensures that governance frameworks support the business’s commercial goals and strategy. This means linking delivery decisions to contract terms, recognising when risks should be escalated, and creating visibility into financial performance throughout the project lifecycle.

Without this connection, even well-structured systems can fail to protect the business. The people become overstretched, stress increases, and the leadership team becomes the system.

Which project leadership skills do SMEs need?

Governance and systems matter, but consistent delivery also depends on culture and project leadership skills.

In SME environments, teams rely on these skills daily, often under pressure, while delivering internal change and external client projects.

At Coron, we see these capabilities blending into our own project management framework: ‘Backpack’: communication, organisation, resources, opportunities, and navigation.

Communication

Clear communication sits at the centre of effective delivery.

This goes beyond reporting progress. It includes aligning delivery teams, engaging stakeholders, setting expectations and addressing issues early.

Leaders who communicate well reduce chaos across projects. They create shared understanding, openness and honesty, helping to prevent small issues from becoming larger problems.

Good communication relies on personal relationships, mutual trust and respect. A leader who is self-aware and stays true to their values can support direct reports in becoming more self-aware, recognising their personal style and how to communicate well with their teams.

Organisation

Strong organisation covers the tools, technology and structure of the work.

Leaders need to ensure that workstreams meet client requirements and the project timeline while keeping teams focused on what matters most. Without this prioritisation, activity increases, but outcomes remain inconsistent.

Developing a company-wide system, even if it is used lightly for smaller projects and fully deployed on larger, more complex projects, supports consistency.

Leaders who organise well, design and implement these systems using logic, analysis and practical judgement about what will work inside their business.

Resources

Effective leaders understand how to recognise strengths within the team and deploy people where they add the most value.

This also means placing people where their work feels purposeful and where personal growth is possible.

In many SMEs, resources are stretched. This increases the need for clear decisions about roles and responsibilities to maintain delivery momentum.

In practice, leaders may need to make some of those decisions using judgment and intuition, giving people the right support to grow into roles that stretch them beyond what they have previously done.

Opportunities

Projects also create opportunities for improvement and additional value.

Where work falls outside the contract definitions, skilled leaders can take the lead on commercial negotiations and make the most of client opportunities.

Leaders who encourage teams to proactively identify better ways of working, act on lessons and recognise commercial opportunities strengthen both project outcomes and business performance.

PMI’s 2025 Pulse of the Profession report places strong emphasis on business acumen. It describes business acumen as a critical differentiator for project success and links it to the ability to create value beyond scope, budget and schedule. That is particularly relevant in SMEs, where project managers are often close to commercial decisions even when they have not been formally developed for that responsibility.

Navigation

Perhaps the most overlooked skill is the ability to navigate complexity and simplify it for others.

Projects rarely follow a straight path. Risks emerge, external factors change, client priorities shift and technical constraints become clearer as the work progresses.

Leaders must maintain direction while adapting to new information, managing different personalities and responding to the technical demands of their industry.

In live project environments, leaders rarely have complete information. They must balance speed, risk and impact, often making calls that shape both delivery and commercial outcomes.

Hesitation can create delay, yet rushed decisions can introduce further risk.

Strong leaders develop the judgement to act at the right time, with the best information available, while remaining adaptable as situations evolve. This requires confidence, clear thinking and the ability to make decisions under pressure, so that the project does not drift.

Leadership behaviour shapes project culture

The leaders’ approach to these skills shapes the team’s behaviour.

In many SMEs, culture is not formally defined; it is reinforced through leadership actions.

When leaders reward busyness, teams stay busy.

When leaders create space for clarity, prioritisation improves.

When difficult conversations are avoided at the top, they are avoided throughout the project.

When decisions are constantly pulled upwards, project managers learn to wait.

When commercial thinking is limited to senior leaders, project teams miss opportunities to protect margins and manage risk early.

Over time, these patterns influence how effectively communication, organisation, resource management and commercial ownership operate across the team.

This is why project leadership in SMEs cannot sit only with directors. Senior leaders set direction, but delivery confidence grows when leadership capability is developed across the project team.

This is also why project leadership is connected to wellbeing. When ownership is unclear and pressure keeps moving upwards or sideways, good people can become tired, frustrated and uncertain. Coron’s article, Project Manager Mental Health: Why Pressure Builds in SMEs, especially when project managers are expected to take on responsibility without the right support, structure or authority.

How personal development supports the leadership team

When leaders spend more time resolving issues than shaping direction, decisions are delayed or revisited. Meetings become longer and less productive. Confidence in delivery drops, both internally and with clients.

This can trigger the perception that more people are needed.

The real issue may be that the leadership team needs more from its existing people, supported by clearer delegation, stronger project habits and practical development.

Having a third party as a sounding board can help leaders create more space to think strategically and act with confidence. It can also help the wider team understand how to take more ownership, communicate more clearly and make better decisions in real delivery situations.

Leadership capability is often concentrated at the top, with limited depth in the layer between senior leaders and project managers.

This creates a bottleneck, where too many decisions flow upwards and too little authority is distributed across the team.

Strengthening the middle layer through development and clearer delegation allows the business to scale more effectively and reduces dependence on a small number of individuals.

Leadership is a skill that can be learned. It belongs at every level where people are expected to make decisions, communicate clearly and take responsibility for outcomes.

Project managers play a critical role in translating strategy into delivery and acting as leaders themselves. If their development stops at getting a project qualification, a gap emerges. Systems may be in place, but confidence and capability may not be fully aligned.

This is where structured development for project professionals can help overstretched teams recover, regroup, and move forward with greater confidence.

Moving from individual effort to team capability

Many SME project teams already have good people.

They have committed project managers, capable engineers, commercially aware leaders and teams who care about doing a good job.

The opportunity is to turn individual effort into shared capability.

That means helping project professionals understand:

• how to communicate with more confidence;
• how to structure and prioritise their work;
• how to manage resources and expectations;
• how to recognise commercial and delivery opportunities;
• how to navigate pressure, complexity and uncertainty;
• how to lead themselves before waiting for leadership from above.

This is where project leadership becomes a practical capability inside the business.

It becomes evident in meetings, decisions, reporting, client conversations, escalation routes, and the way people take ownership.

Where Base Camp fits

Coron’s Base Camp programme focuses on building real-world capability within project environments.

It supports project professionals in strengthening communication, improving organisation, managing resources effectively, recognising opportunities, and navigating complexity with confidence.

For SME directors, this creates a more sustainable model.

Capability is distributed across the team, project managers become more confident and senior leaders gain more space. The business becomes less dependent on a small group of people to carry the pressure.

A more balanced approach includes:

• clarifying leadership roles and responsibilities;
• strengthening governance without overcomplicating it;
• investing in systems that support visibility and decision-making;
• developing the practical leadership skills of project teams;
• creating a stronger connection between delivery, commercial awareness and leadership behaviour.

This is where project leadership in SMEs moves beyond Gantt charts and governance.

It becomes a capability that sits within the organisation, not just within individual roles.

A practical starting point

For SME leaders who recognise some of the pressures described in this article, the next step is not always a large change programme.

Often, the best starting point is to pause, look honestly at how the project management team is working, and identify where capability, confidence, and ownership need strengthening.

To support that, Coron has created a practical guide:

How to strengthen your project management team: A practical guide for SME leaders who want stronger delivery, clearer ownership and more consistent project performance.

The guide is designed to help leaders think through the key areas that affect project team performance and begin identifying where development may be needed.

It can be used as a self-reflection tool, a leadership team discussion prompt, or the first step towards a more structured conversation about project capability.

For businesses that want support in putting this into practice, our Base Camp programme provides a structured way to develop the people, habits and leadership behaviours that underpin stronger project delivery.

If you would value a conversation before deciding what support is needed, a short Compass Check call is a simple place to start. It gives you space to talk through what is happening in the team, where pressure is showing, and whether Base Camp, Trail Insight or another route would be the most useful next step.

Project leadership is about direction, ownership and confidence.

When that capability grows, project confidence grows with it.

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FAQs

Common questions about project leadership in SMEs