When you take into account all the direct costs and potential indirect costs, the investment in meetings is incredibly significant. If you liken a meeting to a type of communication technology, could this actually be one of the largest unidentified line items in an organizational budget?

Although these facilitation techniques are consistent with servant leadership and can certainly promote meeting success, none of this precludes a leader from being direct and assertive and moving the discussion forward actively if needed. In fact, jumping into the meeting fray and taking control might be exactly what is needed from the meeting lead

Meetings help employees build attachments to others and recognize that they are not alone in silos but instead are part of something bigger than themselves.

A leader with a servant-and-giver mindset recognizes his or her unique responsibility to make the meeting a good use of time. The meeting is not about the leader personally feeling the meeting had value; rather, it is about deriving value more broadly.

Namely, performance is optimal when some level of stress exists, and performance is lowest in the absence of stress, as well as when there is an abundance of stress.

there is no other single investment of this magnitude that an organization makes that is treated in such a cavalier manner; where so few resources are allocated to assessing, evaluating, and working to improve meetings, both locally and enterprise-wide.

promoting consensus, thus serving as a focal point for collective drive and energy.

Another opportunity for leader development and accountability is to conduct 360-degree feedback surveys that contain some content on meetings.

They think carefully about the design and execution of the meeting, from soup to nuts—they never just “phone it in.