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Originally Posted On: Are Leadership Meetings Giving You a Headache? Here’s How to Soothe that Pain |Small Business Sense (small-bizsense.com)

 

Leadership meetings can be intimidating, especially when you’re leading. They don’t have to be.
Leadership meetings. Love ‘em or hate ‘em: they’re here to stay. They’re where our relationships grow with our co-execs and vital organization-wide decisions are made. These meetings are where the top minds discuss key issues, goals, and strategies. But with top-minds can come large egos and leadership meetings can be intimidating. Don’t worry, though! First, you should pat yourself on the back that you made it to this type of meeting! You bring a great deal of value to your organization. Now, let’s get you through your leadership meeting.

The best thing you can do as a leader in your company even amongst other leaders? Find your love for meetings and inspire others to do the same. Sounds simple, right?

Of course, leadership meetings are a little more complicated than that. You also need to ensure time isn’t wasted, decisions are made, tasks are assigned and everyone leaves feeling energized and on the same page. This will bring a feeling of satisfaction and camaraderie amongst your peers.

But what if you, the leader, hate leading meetings? Or what if you’re the type of leader who talks too much or too little? Can you recognize when the meeting is becoming unproductive?

Fear not. Below are some concrete ways you can improve your leadership meetings.

“The servant leader is comfortable sharing power and derives satisfaction and success when others prosper and the organization thrives. This type of leadership approach is a core part of the values and development process at many of the most successful global organizations.”
― Steven G. Rogelberg, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare

Nothing will kill a meeting’s vibe quicker than a lack of agenda. In fact, an alarming 60% of all company meetings do not have a set agenda. As a leader, and especially as the meeting planner, you should have a clear, structured agenda sent out to attendees as far in advance as possible so they can also prepare to the best of their ability and the whole meeting will run much smoother.

With Decisions’ agenda builder, you can provide direction, support and context to your meeting by crafting a detailed agenda from scratch or re-using a template from a previous meeting and share it with all attendees ahead of time. As a leader, if you set the preparation precedent, others will follow.

Assign Tasks, Make an Actionable Post-Meeting Plan

In leadership meetings, it’s important that Stuff. Gets. Done.

You’ve done the scheduling gymnastics to gather other busy execs together, so it’s vital to facilitate a meeting where clear decisions are made and tasks are assigned to move your organization forward.

According to a Forbes article by Katy Trost “Smart leaders run successful and efficient meetings by using a clear framework and optimizing their behavior, so every party involved walks away with an actionable plan and clarity on what steps to take next.”

Decisions meeting agenda software allows users to seamlessly sync their discussed project minute meetings into a PDF at the conclusion of the meeting so every attendee can view the notes from the meeting as well as their assigned tasks. This will leave everyone with a clear course of action to take to move projects forward.

Make Sure Everyone Has Their Say

Sure, maybe you called your leadership meeting because you completely disagree with a certain strategy or decision and you want to rant about it, but as a leader, this isn’t productive. You need to structure an agenda so that all relevant participants have their say as well. Perhaps a strategy you disagree with has certain advantages you overlooked. Great leaders listen.

A great way to make sure everyone is heard is to build time into the agenda for each speaker to present. You can use Decisions meeting manager software, which has a time tracker tool that monitors each presenter to guarantee no one is short-changed and that no one monopolizes the meeting.

After listening to everyone, you may change your mind and realize the strategy you hated is actually brilliant after all! Crazier things have happened.

Stay Humble

As Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg wrote in his book The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance: “The servant leader is comfortable sharing power and derives satisfaction and success when others prosper and the organization thrives. This type of leadership approach is a core part of the values and development process at many of the most successful global organizations.”

Basically, serve to lead. Stay humble and listen. And go out there and kill it in your next meeting. You got this!
Download Decisions

Decisions meeting management software allows you to create a meeting agenda or use a template, allow presenters to upload relevant documents before the meeting, track meeting minutes and sync them into an easy-to-download PDF at the conclusion of your meeting and so much more! Decisions works as a seamless Office 365 Integration, in Outlook and in Teams. Every great leader needs assistance, and the team at Decisions is ready to help you have your best leadership meetings ever!

Download a free trial of Decisions and start having better meetings today.