Let’s talk about one-on-ones.
There’s a conventional wisdom out there that says if you’re a people-focused leader, you show up for your team with a weekly hour. Face-to-face. Just supporting them, just being present for whatever they need, so nobody feels left out there on their own.
Before I became a coach, I spent a couple of decades building teams, building businesses, building communities, harnessing human energy for the greater good. Now, as an EOS Implementer, I help business owners and their leadership teams do exactly that. And here’s what I’ve noticed. When leaders insist they’re having one-on-ones because they care about their people, I ask them one simple question: what are you actually doing in that meeting?
I’m not telling anyone to cancel their one-on-ones. I’m asking them to know why they’re having it. What’s the actual objective of that time?
Are you training? Are you letting someone ask permission for a decision they should be making themselves? Are you dancing around the fact that there’s no process, solving the problem together in the moment, feeling good about it, but never actually building the process so it doesn’t happen again next time?
Or, honestly, has it turned into gossip? Some kind of therapy hour? Because if it has, I’ve spent thousands of hours of my own life in one-on-ones, and I have to ask: who was that therapy really for? The leader? Or the person sitting across from you, looking for guidance?
If you have to have regular one-on-ones instead of trusting people to do their jobs, maybe what you actually need is a task-focused or project-focused meeting instead. But if you’re going to keep the one-on-one, know what it’s for. Is it to stay connected? Or is it because you’re not ready to delegate, not ready to let go of the vine?
I’m all for making time for people. I’d like to think that’s always been true of me. But I also want leaders to know: your people can do their jobs. And you have a job too, one that exists outside of what starts to look like co-dependent micromanaging.
Hire great people. Let them run. Then go do your own job, and go home at night.
Just food for thought.
