The best thing you can do in these roles is protect your team. It's your primary job to ensure they can build and with minimal wasted efforts. If you view it as

The best thing you can do in these roles is protect your team. It's your primary job to ensure they can build and with minimal wasted efforts. If you view it as building for the company, your team is a victim to all the dysfunctions of the organization and nobody wants to be on that team. The mouthpiece part is tricky, I always try to give the official message with a dose of my personal candid opinion on it even if it's in opposition. You just can't lay it on too thick and try to find a way to spin it to a positive as to not be demotivating for the team, "it might be challenging, but at least we'll learn X and they're aware of the risks that are at top of your minds."