How to be a Successful Leader in Meeting: 5 Points to Ponder

1. Be Respectful: 

Demonstrate that everybody’s views matter. While it's great that everyone has a voice and deserves to be heard in the meeting room. Respect every person in the room and honor them or give a credit for a good opinion so that they may come back with more ideas.

2. Keep Quiet: 

Follow an 80/20 rule. In a meeting, speak for only 20% of the time. Don’t just talk, but get your hands dirty too. People look up to action-oriented leaders, not leaders who talk superficially. So, rather than talk about doing things, why not keep quiet and improve the outcome?

3. Ask Questions: 

Keep your questions to the point. Challenge assumptions. At the organizational level, leaders must practice active listening to suggestions of improvement, which sometimes may come from employees from the lower rung of the hierarchy.

4. Keep Meeting Small: 

Too many people translate to too many voices. You can’t listen to all. Split discussions from meetings. Pick the right person to run the meeting so they can put up a prioritized agenda. Give a warning when you are a minute or two from the prescribed end. 

5. Be Patient: 

Not everybody can explain a problem in bullet points. It'll take some time, sometimes lot of time to find the right motive. As soon as you put up the slide, your audience will start reading it - from top to bottom. It means that they won't be listening to you while you talk about the first item, since reading is faster than talking, your audience will be through with reading the slide before you're through with talking about it.