I was on a family vacation last week. I left my team call on the calendar so my team can meet.
One thing leaders tend to overlook (and employees are trained to overlook) is the team call belongs to the team. It's not a leader meeting. It's a team meeting.
I used to make the classic mistake of canceling team meetings when I couldn't attend. After all, wasn't I the point of the meeting? The result was predictable: team momentum died, communication gaps emerged, and people felt disconnected from each other.
Now I do the opposite. When I'm out, the meeting stays. Sometimes it's more productive without me there.
My team can discuss challenges they're facing with prospects, share technical wins, or work through deal strategies without worrying about managing up to me. They don't need me to give them permission to collaborate, problem-solve, or support each other. It's also a core part of building a great team culture.
This is especially true in the SE world. We're dealing with complex technical conversations, evolving customer requirements, and tight deal timelines. The best insights often come from peer-to-peer exchanges—someone who just solved a similar POC challenge or figured out how to frame TCO conversations with digital native companies.
When I first started managing teams in the infrastructure space, I thought my job was to be the hub of all communication. Every update flowed through me. Every decision required my input. That model broke down fast as teams scaled and customer demands accelerated.
The teams that thrive are self-organizing systems. They know how to surface problems early, share knowledge across deals, and keep momentum going regardless of who's in the room on any given day.
What signals are you sending your team about who owns their collaboration? Are you the enabler of team success, or the bottleneck that stops everything when you're unavailable?
The meeting belongs to them. Your job is to make sure it happens, whether you're there or not.