A skip-level meeting is a conversation between a senior leader and employees lower in the reporting structure, and its job is to surface ground-truth feedback you can act on. It is not a performance review. Copy the timed agenda below, pick the question sets that match your goal, and plan the follow-up before the meeting starts.
TL;DR:
- A session lasting 55 to 60 minutes should reserve time for context, core discussion, deeper probing, feedback, and reading back actions with named owners.
- Choose one or two question categories per meeting, and ask about management patterns rather than asking employees to rate their direct managers.
- Explain the purpose, confidentiality limits, note taker, and follow up timing beforehand; wait a day or two before sharing themes with the manager.
- Turn each insight into an action with an owner and deadline, then report changes to the team without identifying who raised the concern.
- Quarterly rotations support routine relationship building; add targeted sessions in affected teams after turnover, reorganizations, productivity declines, or recurring signs of dissatisfaction.
Table of Contents
- What does a skip level meeting agenda look like in practice?
- Which skip level questions should you ask?
- How should you prepare the manager, the employee and everyone else?
- How do you run the meeting so people actually speak up?
- How often should you hold skip level meetings, and in what format?
- How do you turn skip level notes into action?
- Why do skip level meetings matter?
- How should you tailor the agenda for different levels and departments?
- What do good skip level meeting outcomes look like?
- Where we see skip-levels go right: feeding a 60-day plan
- How we help leaders operationalize skip level findings
- FAQ
- Sources
What does a skip level meeting agenda look like in practice?
Use this timed template for a 55 to 60 minute one-on-one or small-group session. It gives the conversation a shape without scripting it.
- Opening: Arrival and an easy icebreaker.
- Context: Explain the purpose, including what happens to the notes.
- Core discussion: Ask questions about the team, process and leadership.
- Deeper probe: Explore themes that come up.
- Feedback: Invite feedback for you and clarify what you heard.
- Wrap-up: Read back actions and owners aloud.
Adjust it to the format you run:
- Short one-on-one: Keep the icebreaker brief, ask a few core questions, skip the deeper probe, and reserve time for actions.
- Small group: Allow extra time, let quieter voices answer first, and use a shared whiteboard so no one has to speak up alone.
- Recurring rotation: Open every session by naming one thing that changed since the last round.
Send the agenda in advance. Include a one-sentence purpose, the confidentiality boundaries, who takes notes, and when people will hear back. When we help leaders structure timed sessions, we point them to a sales leadership offsite agenda as an example of keeping a session focused on outcomes instead of updates.
Which skip level questions should you ask?
Pick one or two categories per meeting instead of running through everything. Practitioner compilations such as 77 skip-level questions group prompts by purpose, and the sets below follow the same logic, trimmed to what works.
Icebreakers and rapport builders
Power cues make people cautious, so start small and human. A Gatherilla analysis of employee engagement ties candor to psychological safety, which is exactly what these openers build.
- What are you working on that you're most proud of right now?
- What does a good week look like for you?
- What's one thing about the team I wouldn't know from the dashboard?
- What's the best part of your day, and the most annoying part?
Team and process questions
These skip level meeting topics expose blockers, handoffs and resource gaps that rarely reach the executive level.
- Where does work get stuck between your team and the next one?
- Which process do you work around because the official version is too slow?
- What tool, headcount or information are you missing doing your job well?
- What decision gets escalated that should be made closer to the work?
- If you could change one thing about how we run this team, what would it be?
Manager feedback questions
Ask these about patterns, not people, and never ask the employee to rate their manager.
- How do you get clear direction on priorities?
- When you hit a problem, how easy is it to get support?
- How does feedback reach you, and how useful is it?
- What would help your manager lead the team better?
Individual and career questions
These show investment and give you a read on retention risk.
- What skill would you like to build?
- What work would you like more of, and less of?
- Where would you like to see yourself in the future, and what would help you get there?
- What would make you stay here for a long time?
Crisis and change questions
Use these during turnover, restructuring or disruption.
- What are people saying about the changes when leaders aren't in the room?
- What information would help you feel more certain about what's ahead?
- What's one thing we're doing that is helping, and one that is not?
- Who on your team is carrying more than their share right now?
How should you prepare the manager, the employee and everyone else?
Surprises damage trust. SHRM advises preparing both employees and their managers before a skip-level, explaining that it is not a performance review so staff feel safe and understand the context.
Start with the direct manager. A short script works: "I'm meeting with several people on your team over the next month. This is about how work and leadership look from the floor, not about evaluating you or them. I'll share themes with you, not who said what, and I'd like your help making the follow-up happen."
For employees, cover four points:
- The purpose: hearing how work really gets done.
- The boundary: this is not a performance conversation.
- Confidentiality: what stays private, and the rare exception such as safety or legal issues.
- The follow-up: when and how they will hear what changed.
Settle the logistics early. Name one note-taker, agree where notes live, and decide who turns themes into actions. Leave a day or two after the meeting before sharing anything with the manager, so you can separate signal from a single bad week.
Pro Tip: Ask the direct manager to suggest one topic they want the employee to raise. It turns them from a suspect into an ally.
How do you run the meeting so people actually speak up?
Your behavior in the room decides the quality of what you hear. Keep your own contributions brief and spend most of the time listening.
- Ask open questions, then follow up. "Tell me more about that handoff" beats a second new question.
- Mirror and summarize. Repeat what you heard in a sentence before moving on, so the person knows you caught it.
- Reduce power cues. Sit at an angle instead of across a desk, put the phone away, and say out loud that candor is welcome.
- Stay steady under criticism. Thank the person, probe for a specific example, and commit to a follow-up. Defending, explaining or correcting ends the flow of honest input.
- Capture actions visibly. Write them where the employee can see them and read them back at the end.
The research supports the effort. An academic study by Detert and Treviño found that employees' sense of whether speaking up is safe or worthwhile is shaped by leaders across multiple levels, not just their direct supervisor. So your tone in the room carries beyond the room.
Pro Tip: If someone goes quiet after a hard comment, don't fill the silence. Pause, then ask, "What else sits behind that?"
How often should you hold skip level meetings, and in what format?
Match cadence to your objective. If the goal is relationship-building, run a rotation so every team gets a turn. If you are responding to a problem, go targeted.
- Rotation: A sensible default for relationship-building. Schedule sessions so employees have a chance to speak without overloading your calendar.
- Trigger-based: Run them after turnover spikes, productivity dips, a reorganization or recurring dissatisfaction signals. SHRM's guidance describes these two uses: routine touchpoints and targeted work with struggling teams.
- One-on-one vs. small group: One-on-ones give more safety and detail. Small groups give breadth and speed, but quieter people may hold back.
- Length: Keep check-ins brief and allow more time for deeper conversations.
- By size: In smaller organizations, meet with each team on a regular schedule. In larger ones, sample teams and rotate.
How do you turn skip level notes into action?
Meetings without follow-up teach employees that speaking up is pointless. SHRM's work on operationalizing feedback makes the same point: feedback matters when it enters the flow of work through low-friction channels and directs real task-level decisions.
Convert every insight into a named action, an owner and a deadline. "Look into the handoff issue" is not an action. "Sam documents the intake handoff and tests a new checklist by an agreed deadline" is.
Follow this rhythm:
- Soon after the meeting: Send a short thank-you with what you heard and what happens next.
- During follow-up: Check in with the manager on progress.
- At a subsequent team meeting: Report what changed, without attributing comments to individuals.
Track a few simple measures: blockers resolved, visible changes in manager behavior, reports back to teams, and movement in engagement signals. For a structure to hold all this, see our guide to an action plan.
| Insight | Action | Owner | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insight | Action | Owner | Deadline |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Handoff between intake and fulfillment stalls | Document steps and pilot a checklist | Operations lead | Agreed deadline |
| Priorities change without notice | Regular priority note from the manager | Direct manager | Agreed deadline |
| Career paths feel unclear | Development conversation for each employee | Direct manager and HR | Agreed deadline |
Why do skip level meetings matter?
The case rests on two ideas: voice is shaped by leaders at several levels, and feedback only counts when people see action. The Detert and Treviño study above shows the first. The second shows up in CIPD research summarized by SHRM, which notes that while many employees use one-to-one meetings to voice opinions, a meaningful share rarely raise ideas at all.
Feedback is useful only when it enters the flow of work and produces visible action; meetings without follow-up discourage future input.
A meaningful share of employees rarely raise ideas even in one-to-one meetings. That gap is the opening for skip-levels, and it is why trust and follow-up matter more than the questions themselves.
Treat the skip-level as one channel in a wider employee-voice system. Pair it with surveys, team meetings and manager one-on-ones, and route what you learn into the way work is planned.
How should you tailor the agenda for different levels and departments?
The template stays the same. The questions shift with where people sit.
- Frontline and operations teams: Focus on tools, staffing, safety, scheduling and handoffs. Keep sessions short, hold them near the work, and ask for specific examples such as "walk me through yesterday's worst hour."
- Sales and customer-facing teams: Ask about pipeline friction, pricing approvals, lead quality and what customers keep asking for. Time them away from quota deadlines.
- Professional and technical teams: Probe priorities, rework, unclear requirements and career growth. These groups often welcome the longer sixty-minute format.
- Middle managers: Skip-level meetings with people who manage others should cover decision rights, resources and what they need from you to lead well. Treat them as peers, not as a source of reports on their own staff.
- Remote or hybrid teams: Use video, send questions in advance and give a written follow-up channel for people who think better on paper.
For each group, keep the ratio constant: mostly listening, a small number of well-chosen questions, and a visible action list at the end.
What do good skip level meeting outcomes look like?
Outcomes are usually modest and concrete, which is what makes them credible. These are illustrative patterns, not case studies.
- A stalled handoff gets fixed. Several employees mention the same delay between two teams. The senior leader brings both managers together, a checklist is piloted, and the next round of skip-levels opens with "here's what changed."
- A manager's blind spot surfaces. Employees say priorities shift without explanation. The direct manager hears the theme, not the names, and starts a short weekly priorities note.
- A retention risk is caught early. A strong performer says they cannot see a path forward. A development conversation follows within a few weeks, before a resignation does.
- A resource gap becomes a decision. Frontline staff describe a recurring tool failure that never reaches leadership. It moves from complaint to budget item.
The common thread is the follow-through. The meeting produced a named action, someone owned it, and the team heard about it. Our write-up on preventing change fatigue covers why short, visible actions keep people engaged instead of exhausted.
Where we see skip-levels go right: feeding a 60-day plan
In our experience, the meeting is the cheap part. The hard part is deciding what to fix first. We take what the frontline tells us, rank it by impact and effort, and assign each item an owner and a date inside a 60-day window. A recurring handoff complaint, for example, becomes a short corrective sprint: map the handoff, test one change, review it, and report back to the team. If you need outside help carrying changes through, that is exactly what our Operations Audit is built for.
— David
How we help leaders operationalize skip level findings
Skip-levels tell you what is broken. We help you fix it. Our 90-Day Operations Audit maps your people, processes and performance systems, then delivers prioritized actions with the accountability mechanisms and implementation runway to make them stick. Our Leadership Development work helps managers build the coaching habits that make these conversations honest. The Operations Audit is $3,500, one-off. Review the audit page or book a discovery call and we will show you how your skip-level notes become a plan your team can run on Monday.
FAQ
What should you talk about in a skip level meeting?
Focus on how work and leadership look from the employee's seat: blockers, handoffs, resources, manager support and career growth. Pick one or two question categories per meeting and leave time to confirm actions at the end.
What is another word for a skip level meeting?
Common alternatives include "skip meeting" and "skip-level one-on-one." Some organizations call them "leadership listening sessions" or "open-door conversations" when held in small groups. The name matters less than telling employees it is not a performance review.
What are some characteristics of a weak manager?
Employees often describe unclear priorities, little feedback, defensiveness when challenged and a habit of ignoring problems raised by the team. Skip-level conversations help you spot these patterns across several people, which is more reliable than a single complaint.
What are good agenda items for a skip level meeting?
Strong agenda items include a short icebreaker, the purpose and confidentiality statement, core questions on team and process, one deeper probe, feedback for you, and a read-back of actions with owners. The timed template above covers each.
How often should you hold skip level meetings?
Quarterly rotations work well for routine relationship-building, with extra sessions after turnover, change or performance concerns. SHRM's guidance describes both routine and targeted uses.