That meeting is costing you more than you think.
Your presence in certain meetings isn’t helping. It’s editing.
As a senior leader, what is your impact on meetings?
You’ve probably done the work of cutting low-value meetings from your calendars. Have you ever looked at what your presence in certain meetings is costing the people around you?
When a Director or VP or someone even more senior shows up to a working session or team meeting, the room changes.
The meeting becomes a performance
Debate narrows. Decisions that were forming get pushed aside. Most people in the room are managing up instead of solving the problem. Instead of a working session, and the real conversation happens afterward in the hallway.
I’ve seen this happen in so many meetings I’ve been in. It’s not about intent — most leaders attend these meetings because they care about the work. It’s about effect. Presence at the wrong stage of a decision doesn’t improve the outcome. It can shortcut the thinking that makes good outcomes possible.
On a project years ago, the team I was leading had gotten into a rhythm and were making real progress. Then my boss came in the room. She asked questions we’d decided upon weeks ago, added ideas she saw as helpful but lacked context. My team shifted almost immediately to make her happy, rather than make the right decision. It then took us multiple meetings to get back on track.
The practical fix isn’t to become less engaged.
It’s to be more deliberate about what kind of engagement a given moment actually needs — input, oversight, or a decision. Those are three different roles, and showing up the same way to all three is where the cost accumulates.
Two actions worth taking this week
- Audit the recurring meetings on your calendar and identify which ones you attend out of habit rather than necessity.
- Then pick one working session where your team is developing a recommendation and don’t attend — let them bring you the output instead. Notice what’s different about what they bring you.
