How to Lead a Meeting
So you’ve been asked to run a meeting!
This is a key skill in leadership communication, and it’s harder than it looks. It’s very different from presenting at a meeting, because when you’re the chair, facilitator or moderator, you’re opening up the floor for others to speak. And when other people start to speak, ANYTHING can happen.
When meetings go badly, you might have people rambling and going off-topic; you might get crickets as people don’t want to engage; it can go on for way too long, feel pointless, and leave people feeling like “this could have been an email.”
But a good meeting is productive; creative; collaborative. People are engaged and give you great insights that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. They feel heard and valued and excited to keep going with the project.
I regularly work with leaders and managers who want to adjust their communication styles to get better results out of their teams, while establishing their own credibility and achieving their professional goals. And the way you lead a meeting can go a long way here.
There are two key principles that are essential for a good meeting.
The first is that you need to have a plan.
Your plan starts with having a clear purpose. A goal of what you want to achieve during that meeting. And your goal needs to be realistic. If your goal is to put 12 strangers in a room for an hour and have them hammer out a detailed strategic plan - no, it isn’t. Because that’s not going to happen.
Once you know your goal, you’ll know who needs to be in the room. Those people need to be clear on what decisions they need to make, and the process for making those decisions. Is this a democratic process? Are you looking for consensus? Or does one person make the final decision?
Make sure you have an agenda, you’ve estimated how much time each item will take, and ideally you’ve shared the agenda with your participants in advance. If you’re using tech, make sure you know how to use it and so does everyone else.
Finally, plan for breaks - especially if your meeting will be more than two hours long. Brains and bodies need breaks, and some need them more than others. Breaks are an accessibility that enable more people to participate fully.
The second principle - don’t get mad! - is that you need to be ready to abandon your plan.
Sometimes you get into that room and realize that what the group needs is not what you’ve written on your agenda. Maybe there are disagreements you didn’t know about, or gaps in the knowledge that you need in order to move forward. At that point, the best thing to do is to name it: “Hey, we came here to do X but it sounds like we really need to figure out Y first. How about we spend some time doing that?”
Then take a pause. Don’t rush! Look at your agenda. Decide what absolutely MUST happen today and what’s optional. When you remove the optional items, how much time does that free up? Use that freed-up time to deal with the unexpected issue.
Always make sure you leave time at the end to allow participants to reflect and ask questions, and end with a summary of your next steps, timelines, and who’s responsible for them. A best practice is to send out this summary in writing after the meeting.
Finally, make sure you end on time. Show people that you respect their time, and you’ll earn their trust.
Want to level-up your leadership communication? Get in touch or set up an appointment and find out how Stage Light Communications can help! And let us know in the comments which topics you’d like to learn about next.