> People who don't check their phones after-hours cannot be trusted to lead projects with demanding clients. "Demanding clients" often respond positively to ar

> People who don't check their phones after-hours cannot be trusted to lead projects with demanding clients. "Demanding clients" often respond positively to articulated, practiced boundaries. I'd be unimpressed with a project lead who simply allowed their client to set the rules. I expect the lead to know what's best for the project/team and to have the skills to communicate that to the client in a way they understand. We like the clients who "know the rules" implicitly, but that doesn't mean the others can't come to learn them. The rare clients who really are so demanding that you can't even establish a boundary like this is probably dragging a whole fleet of problems behind them. [And if you need to be available off-hours because that's what the project needs, that's different. Then it has nothing to do with how "demanding" the client is. It's the project that's setting the terms.]