Note I’ve seen the “protecting me from a meeting” backfire so hard.
One time for lack of headcount I did a bit of double duty as project manager including executive meetings. Then management found a project manager and instead of knocking out my part of those meetings in like 5 minutes, I suddenly had generally hour long prep meetings so my new project manager would be confident enough to engage in whatever random topic the execs tended to go into. After a quarter they demanded I swap back in to do the meetings instead, which I was happy to do.
Also, those meetings are my best chance to cut through some confusion so I don’t end up with a mess of crap in the tracker.
As a PM who tries to not waste anyone’s time, thank you. I’ve had pushback before from people who don’t like to do the talking, but I would only call that person forward if it’s going to prevent a ton of headaches all around. Sometimes it’s difficult to explain that. Otherwise I have no problem being the punching bag on stage. It’s my job.