By Mike Shannon
Leadership meetings can either be your most valuable tool for driving your company forward—or your biggest time-waster. The difference often comes down to how you structure them and the mindset you bring into the room. From my own experience leading a fast-growing company, and through countless conversations with other CEOs, I’ve learned that effective leadership meetings are about much more than just sharing updates.
In this article, I’ll share my personal journey from running ineffective meetings to transforming them into a key driver of team alignment and execution. I’ll also share insights from my co-host Corey Ferengul, as we dig into how to make these meetings work for you and your company.
The Turning Point: From Bad Meetings to Good
Let me set the stage: It was the fall of 2019, and our company had grown to about 75 employees. We had a solid executive team of about seven people. Despite this, our executive meetings were terrible. In fact, half the time they didn’t even happen, because I didn’t see them as a priority. I was too focused on firefighting or diving into day-to-day operations, thinking the meetings weren’t worth my time.
It wasn’t until I got feedback from my CTO that things needed to change. He bluntly told me, “Mike, you went from having a bad leadership team to a good one, and I feel like I’m part of a stronger company now” . That was the wake-up call I needed to fix our meetings.
Key Lessons: Making Leadership Meetings Work
Once I realized how critical these meetings were, I made a few key adjustments that completely changed the game:
The Shift in Mindset: I started seeing the executive team meeting as the nucleus of the company, not an overhead burden. As Corey likes to say, “The leadership team is the engine of the organization; it’s where strategy meets execution” . This mental shift allowed me to prioritize these meetings as the most important activity of my week.
Structured Agenda: I adopted the "Level 10" meeting structure from the Traction book. This framework was a lifesaver. I brought a timer to keep us on track and focused on the highest-leverage issues. As Corey mentioned in the episode, “Time invested in making the meeting work is not free, but it pays off when done right” .
The Issues List: We built the meeting around an issues list. Each executive was responsible for contributing items throughout the week, and I’d prioritize them by Friday afternoon. This way, when Monday rolled around, we were ready to hit the most important topics, not just operational noise .
The Role of Transparency and Trust
One of the things I’ve learned is that leadership meetings should be a safe space for open, honest conversations. Corey emphasized this in the episode when he said, “The meeting should be a place where executives can share what’s really going on without fear” .
In our leadership team, we created a rule: what’s said in the meeting stays in the meeting. This encouraged transparency and allowed us to have tough discussions about our teams, challenges, and company performance. And as Corey rightly pointed out, “If someone leaks sensitive information, they’re off the team” . That level of trust is crucial.
Strategic Off-Sites: A Different Kind of Meeting
While weekly executive meetings are vital for tackling day-to-day operations, off-site strategy sessions provide a chance to step back and think big. We found that holding three off-sites a year helped us focus on the long-term vision without getting bogged down by daily fires.
But as Corey and I discussed, you have to be careful with the size of these meetings. "Keep the off-sites focused on your core executive team, usually seven or eight people," Corey advised. "When you start bringing in too many people, you dilute the effectiveness" . Larger, broader leadership meetings can still be useful, but they should be handled separately to avoid losing focus.
Final Thoughts
Leadership meetings are about more than just keeping the team in the loop—they’re about creating alignment, fostering trust, and solving the most important problems. It took me a while to get there, but once I flipped my mindset, these meetings became the cornerstone of our success.
If you’re struggling with your leadership meetings, my advice is this: make them a priority, give them structure, and ensure your team feels safe to speak openly. When done right, leadership meetings become the engine that drives your company forward.
-Mike Shannon
Co-Host of Opening the C-Suite
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