Your weekly leadership meeting is just a group podcast with worse audio.

Same set. Same agenda. Same polite panic. The work doesn’t happen in the room, it gets narrated in the room.

And you can spot the archetypes in the first five minutes.

The Deck Sommelier
Can’t start until the slides “flow”. Will happily burn 30 minutes adjusting a chart nobody will act on.

The KPI Poet
Reads the dashboard like it’s literature. Lots of tone. Zero decisions.

The Pipeline Fantasist
“Strong top of funnel.” Translation: a CRM full of vibes and half completed fields.

The Blame Cartographer
Draws a beautiful map of how it’s everyone’s fault. Nobody ends up owning the fix.

The Initiative Collector
Adds three new projects every week. Retires none. Everything is a priority, so nothing is.

The Exec Whisperer
Won’t say anything in the room. Saves it for the corridor. “Quick thought…” becomes the real meeting.

The Alignment Priest
“We just need alignment.” Nobody knows what that means, but it sounds spiritual so we nod.

The Action Item Launderer
Turns real problems into vague tasks. “Circle back.” “Socialise.” “Pressure test.” Congratulations, you’ve done nothing in three verbs.

The Consultant Translator
Repeats what the CEO said, but with triangles.

The Corridor Operator
Says nothing in the meeting, does everything after. The only person who understands that meetings are mostly for witnesses.

If you want to know whether a company is serious, ignore the deck and watch the ending.

A real meeting ends with owners, dates, and trade offs. It has a kill list. It creates consequences. Someone leaves slightly uncomfortable because something just got real.

A theatre meeting ends with “great discussion” and a longer agenda next week.

Operators don’t need better meetings. They need fewer meetings and more accountability.