Significant accountability of a Manager is holding productive meetings. There are mainly three types of meetings that can happen;

• Informational
• Consultative
• Team Problem Solving

All managers and team leaders should know how to conduct all 3 of the above meeting types to their fullest. All are required because they keep staff and team members informed about crucial issues, changes, resources, and the bigger picture of the goals and tasks, allowing everyone to offer their expert advice.

Providing expert advice on your skilled-knowledge areas to your manager and peers in a meeting setting creates feelings of connection and collaboration in a team.

Developing connection and collaboration requires that the manager (team leader, supervisor, quality manager, etc…) does more than merely schedule the meetings. Every manager must be able to create an environment where they are receptive to feedback offered by team members, and they respond appropriately to such feedback.

Team members have to feel that their manager is open to input and advice, that the manager will give the information serious consideration, and will provide relevant and responsive feedback to the feedback and advice.

If people do not feel that they have some upward influence on their manager over time they will stop supplying advice or feedback.

When this happens, team members feel that the communication is only one-way, top-down. In this situation, people will feel no obligation to keep their managers out of trouble and to help their managers when needed, leading to a win-lose instead of a win-win.

In what ways can managers / you create an environment conducive to input and advice from team members? In what ways are you currently able to have an upward influence on your manager?

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