> The greatest PM in the world can't help a project if the executive sponsors keep changing scope and requirements or making ridiculous promises to clients to increase sales

It's turtles all the way down. So, let's think about executive sponsors here. Why do they change scope and requirements? Why do the act the way they do?

Yes, there are executives who's career trajectory is defined largely by luck rather then acumen, let alone being knowledgeable or empathic to those in their service, or the stakeholders whom they cater to. But that's not the entire story.

Businesses, whether a small 2 man outfit or billion dollar enterprise, do not operate in a void. Their behaviour is very much driven by changes in their environment. Whether that's the markets they are active in, customers they target, labour markets they tap into, competitors innovating and bringing new products and services to market, and public governance issuing a changing legal frameworks.

Changes in scope and requirements are par for the course. Executive sponsors perceive those as investments and try to make risk-benefit trade off's assessing the information they have at hand. This is where uncertainty seeps into the decision making process. Even with clearly quantified information, it's still hard to predict the future. How will markets evolve? What do customers want? What will the competition do one or two years out?

Strategic thinking and planning is hard because of uncertainty. In a military context, this is a clear given for leadership. Helmuth Von Moltke the Elder (1800-1891) famously said:

> The tactical result of an engagement forms the base for new strategic decisions because victory or defeat in a battle changes the situation to such a degree that no human acumen is able to see beyond the first battle. In this sense one should understand Napoleon's saying: "I have never had a plan of operations." Therefore no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force. [1]

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Elder

> we need better management training in general for anyone whose job is dependent on software

For sure, leadership training is an established need. And it's also a thing that is catered to. There are entire libraries, fields of study, management courses and so on dedicated to leadership training. There's no lack of options out there. That's not the issue.

More interestingly, you have to first question how executives ended up in a leadership position in the first place. For instance, many leaders don't necessarily became leaders because of innate qualities that show a due sense of what is understood as "being a natural leader", but because they were born into a context that handed them the opportunities that put them on that trajectory. Do note how I say "many". The above isn't a catch all either. How individuals end up in a leadership or management role is really a matter of many complex factors and happen stance.

And so, having a social studies background, I always tend to be a bit weary when I see the "we need..." argument because (a) the "we" is never specified, (b) the "we need" negates complex contextual factors and (c) it reduces the argument into a single problem that can be resolved in general terms with a single pragmatic solution.

And so that brings me to this point:

> usually lack of understanding and empathy for how software development works

I feel this goes both ways. Trying to understand the reasoning or the why behind shifting business strategies, and realizing that these are driven by fallible human beings who make mistakes based on incomplete information goes a long way. Working towards improving software development practices is a a great goal, but good will never become perfect. And trying too hard to reach perfection might even backfire.

A lack of understanding and empathy of how software development works could be forgiven. A lack of understanding and empathy of how human beings feel and think - whether it's developers, project managers or executives - can't. It's the latter which makes all the difference at the end of the day.