Skip-Level Meetings
Meetings between senior leaders and employees who don't report directly to them.
Also known as: Skip-Levels, Skip Level One-on-Ones
Category: Techniques
Tags: management, leadership, communication, organizational-culture, feedback, transparency
Explanation
Skip-level meetings are conversations between a manager and employees who are at least two levels below them in the organization - skipping over the direct manager layer. They provide senior leaders with unfiltered insights and give employees face time with leadership.
Purposes of skip-level meetings:
1. Information Flow
- Hear perspectives without filtering
- Understand ground-level challenges
- Detect cultural or process issues early
- Validate what you hear from direct reports
2. Relationship Building
- Build trust across organizational layers
- Make leadership more accessible
- Reduce 'us vs them' dynamics
- Increase employee engagement
3. Development
- Identify high-potential employees
- Provide career guidance and mentorship
- Offer broader organizational context
- Sponsor and advocate for talent
Best practices:
- Regular cadence (monthly or quarterly)
- Inform the middle manager to avoid surprises
- Focus on systemic issues, not individual complaints
- Ask open-ended questions
- Follow up on insights and commitments
- Share appropriate context about organizational direction
Good questions for skip-levels:
- What's working well in your team/area?
- What's frustrating or slowing you down?
- What would you change if you could?
- How well do you understand our strategy?
- What should I know that I might not?
- How can leadership be more helpful?
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Undermining the middle manager
- Making promises you can't keep
- Becoming a complaint session
- Acting on incomplete information without verification
- Using as backdoor performance management
Skip-levels require trust and transparency. The middle manager should know they happen and ideally see them as a positive part of organizational health, not a threat.
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