One Meeting Minute Thought for Your Week
When you’re striving to be an effective meeting leader, you may feel like you have to be perfect.
You probably think you have to have all the essential elements of a productive, effective meeting in place.
And, I may even be partly to blame.
When you’re reading each issue of M4 – the Monday Morning Meeting Minute your mental list of what you think are meeting “requirements” grows along with the pressure you put on yourself.
You’re putting items like this on your “Do Not Forget!” list to be an effective meeting leader.
Essential elements an effective meeting leader needs to remember
Your mental list has all these and more!
- The purpose must be crystal clear.
- Only the right people should be in the room.
- You have to be prepared and ready to lead the group.
- You need to equip others so they’re prepared for your meeting too.
- Remember to assign someone to take notes so you don’t miss any action items.
- An agenda – don’t forget the agenda!
Now don’t get me wrong.
That’s a good list!
Because all of those items are important if you want to be an effective meeting leader.
And, great meeting leaders focus on those things.
But, they do something even more important.
The most important action to take to be an effective meeting leader
The most effective meeting leaders truly care about the people they invite to their meetings.
They sincerely strive to serve their teams.
They are doing their best to be good stewards of the time others give them. After all, our time is the most precious resource we have.
But they won’t always have everything in order.
Because they aren’t perfect.
And, neither are you.
Here’s the encouraging reality though.
You don’t have to be perfect (or even close to perfect) to be an effective meeting leader.
Having the mindset of a caring, kind leaders will set your meetings apart.
Even more than a polished agenda and super organized meeting notes.
Exceptional meetings are led by exceptional leaders.
Focus on being a leader others want to follow.
Your meetings will productive and effective.
Even when you don’t have a perfect agenda.
More Resources to Help You Build Your Career and Your Business
There’s a common misconception that you can’t be kind and be a successful leader.
I completely disagree!
In this blog post, I explain why based on the work of two of my favorite authors on the topic, Brene’ Brown and Janet Meeks:
✅ Can A Kind Leader Be Successful? (Blog post)
You’ve probably heard of Brene’ Brown, but Janet Meeks’ name may be new to you.
Janet is a veteran C-Suite leader within the healthcare and financial services industries and her message is worth hearing.
My blog post includes a video of a talk she gave to the Ross Leadership Institute Series at Otterbein University and links to articles and podcast episodes featuring her.
And, her book, Gracious Leadership: Lead Like You’ve Never Led Before is outstanding.
I encourage you to learn from both of these women to be a kind, confident, and more effective meeting leader.
And Now a Word from Our Sponsors
If you want to be the best steward of your meeting participants’ time, you’ve got to know who they are as individuals and how they do their best work.
The Working Genius framework created by Patrick Lencioni, best selling author of books like The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team and The Advantage, will give you that information.
You’ll be equipped to help people experience Joy, Energy, and Fulfillment in their lives by doing the type of work they’ve been designed to do.
And that includes the work they’re doing in the meetings you lead.
If that sounds like something you want for you and your teams, contact me (click here) and let’s have a conversation.
I’m a Working Genius Certified Facilitator and would love to talk about how you can apply the model to help you and your people find more engagement and success in their work.
We can design an affordable coaching or consulting package to help you and your teams get more done in less time and enjoy work more than ever.
Let’s talk about the next step that’s best for you!
That’s All for this Issue
As you can see in the graphic below, productive meetings are built on a foundation of leading with kindness and confidence.
To be an effective meeting leader put the first thing first. Focus on people!
The mechanics of a good meeting are important but not as important as caring for those who are trusting you with their time.
Seek to serve your meeting participants and your imperfect meetings will still be productive and effective.
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence!
Greg
Here are 3 ways I can help you when you’re ready:
- Get more free resources you can use today (Click here to Start)
- Improve on your own with digital courses (Click here to Improve)
- Accelerate your progress with coaching (Click here to Accelerate)
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