Today’s article is about meeting culture and how to create a good meeting environment as a leader. It looks at what you need to nurture that culture, a good constructive feedback habit and appreciative communication. And what you should avoid, i.e. kill-all phrases and denigrating communication, giving examples of phrases to avoid.
When I listen to my clients as a business coach at the moment, the number of meetings they are juggling has increased since the pandemic exponentially. The habit of virtual meetings is firmly established and has resulted in calendars bulging at the seems with meetings of all types. As leader, you can add to that meeting onslaught and the often terrible meeting culture it entails, or you can provide a space where all participants can participate and be heard, voice their ideas and really innovate together.
Creating a good meeting environment involves nurturing a positive, constructive feedback culture and appreciative communication.
Authentic, modern leaders know this and steer away from kill-all phrases as listed below. They come from a toxic leadership culture and can turn meetings into destructive events. As explored in other articles, real authority and leadership does not rely on a show of strength, but on trust and listening. As your business coach, we can work on strengthening your appreciative communication and constructive feedback skills.
Here are some of the phrases I am sure you have all heard and you will want to avoid, if you want to foster a good meeting culture from your position as a leader:
We have always done it like this.
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- This is an oldie, but not a goodie. An ever popular block-all for any new ideas or different ways of approaching or thinking about things. It will instantly kill all motivation to come up with new ideas, voice them, develop as a team or further develop ways of working. Need I say more?
- Good leaders support new ideas, creative thinking and experimentation instead of holding on to outdated methods.
That’s your fault.
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- At the surface this could seem like problem solving by identifying the cause, to avoid it happening again. What is actually happening is that a leader shirks all responsibility and denigrates a single team member in front of all meeting participants. There is no way a team will be able to jointly problem-solve here. Everyone will know they could suffer the same fate as the exposed colleague and work to cover themselves.
- Good leaders never blame in meetings and can tell the difference between fault and responsibility. One leaves employees unable to act, the other empowers them to adjust and fix the problem.
I don’t have much time.
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- Yes, join the club. Neither do your employees. Telling them so makes it obvious that you do not want to take any time or be in the meeting with them. Statements like this or ‘We need to be quick about this.’ will immediately add pressure to the meeting you are in and affect the meeting culture negatively. The subtext you are sending here is something like
- I have more important things to do that listen to your ideas. Other things have more priority than this.
- or: I can’t manage my meeting schedule or time effectively.
- Good leaders are undoubtedly under time-pressure. And they find a healthy way to manage their stress, avoiding it cascading negatively into their teams. And benefitting from the effects modelling healthy stress management have within their organisation.
- Yes, join the club. Neither do your employees. Telling them so makes it obvious that you do not want to take any time or be in the meeting with them. Statements like this or ‘We need to be quick about this.’ will immediately add pressure to the meeting you are in and affect the meeting culture negatively. The subtext you are sending here is something like
I’d love to have your problems.
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- Instead of using the opportunity to support employees as a leader with your knowledge skills, this passive-aggressiv statement tells everyone that their issues couldn’t possibly be as bad as your own. As in the above examples, this type of communication involves elevating yourself and denigrating others, making working at eye-level impossible.
- Good leaders can listen to their teams issues, put themselves in employees’ shoes and appreciate that issues, that seem small to them, may be very large to others. They can support problem solving and provide help when needed.
More another time.
Creating a good meeting culture where employees feel safe to voice concerns, try out new ideas, give and receive feedback is a key skill in modern, authentic leadership.
Looking to improve the meeting culture in your organisation? Want to adopt a more modern, authentic leadership style, but aren’t quite sure how? Get in touch. As a business coach, I work with leaders on these topics a lot and look forward to hearing from you.
References
Dannheim et al. (2025). Effectiveness of leader-targeted stress management interventions: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Scand J Work Environ Health 2025;51(4):265-281
Harms, P. D., Credé, M., Tynan, M., Leon, M., & Jeung, W. (2017). Leadership and stress: A meta-analytic review. Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), 178-194.
