Some leaders consider regular 1 to 1 meetings with their team members to be a waste of time and effort. After all, there are lots of other things that could be done instead of adding another regular meeting to your schedule.
This perception often results in 1 to 1 meetings being held less frequently, on a monthly basis or even less. This isn’t very much over the course of a whole year!
1 to 1 meetings can be a valuable point of engagement with your team, especially if you focus on making them useful. In this episode, I share some of my ideas to improve your 1 to 1 meetings to both you and your team members can get the most out of them.
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Show Links:
- Article: 1 to 1 Meetings: Let’s Make Them Better.
- Podcast: Thoughtful Leader Podcast #63: “I Don’t Have Time”: Taking Back Control of Your Leadership.
- Article: Risk & Reward: How to Provide Development Opportunities For Your Team.
- Article: How Leaders Can Identify Mental Health Issues.
- Article: 5 Questions to Ask An Unmotivated Team Member.
- Group Coaching Program: Group Coaching to Safeguard Your Wellbeing and Tackle Overwhelm.
Thank you so much for your podcast, they talk to me greatly as an introvert and people oriented person.
I used to manage teams, and we have greatly achieved together: having regular 1 to 1, building trustworthy and open conversations. I have been praised for my leadership in the past, in many ways.
I am now in a job managed by individuals with no management expertise, and despite of this, being called ‘team leader’. However, they make a great emphasis that time is money and they are all ultra busy, so you should have a 1:1 with your team leader only if you have something to talk about (which usually involves the employee giving an update on their work, and no information the other way round), and no more than 30 minutes.
Of course, usually the team leader arrives late at the meeting, speak 10 minutes of their own life or try to talk through your own agenda without your input, and then there is no time left for me to say anything.
I started sending a note to my manager the morning before our meeting, stating that I have nothing on my agenda to report on. She started to cancel our 1:1 one after the other, and I feel I can’t ever share anything with her anymore.
I feel this option of not being in contact with your manager works OK if you have clear responsibilities and the ability to do your job completely freely and you are confident enough to take your own decisions (as much as the authority to do so), which has happened to me in the past.
However, if you are in a job like I am today where I have no clue on my responsibilities, no objectives and need to get approval of my superior for everything… the only option is the way out.
Thanks for the comment Coralie.
Unfortunately, what you describe seems fairly common – managers who don’t really value to 1 on 1 meetings, but they’ve been told they should have them! I think they are one of the best ways to build rapport and trust with different types of team members, rather than only trying to do the 1-size-fits-all approach of team meetings.
Good luck with it!
Ben