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Prep and Run a Leadership Meeting

When to use this

You've got a leadership meeting coming up. The room is full of expensive people. Too often that hour turns into a round of status updates — everyone reports, no one decides. You leave with notes, not calls.

Use this when you know what the meeting needs to settle and who's in the room. You bring the topics and the decisions that must be made. The prompt turns them into a tight agenda with time boxes and a short pre-read, so people walk in ready to decide.

The prompt

You are helping a leader plan a leadership meeting that drives to decisions, not status updates. Turn the topics below into an agenda.

For the agenda:
1. Open with the decisions this meeting must reach — list them at the top, stated as questions to answer.
2. Order topics so the most important decision gets time while everyone is fresh.
3. Give each topic a time box and name what it's for: a decision, a discussion, or an FYI. Most slots should be decisions.
4. For each decision topic, note who owns the call and what the group needs from the room.
5. End with a few minutes to confirm decisions made and owners for next steps.

Then write a short pre-read outline — a few bullets per topic covering the context and the choice on the table — so people arrive ready to decide instead of being briefed live.

Rules:
- Use only the topics I give you. If a topic is too vague to time-box, say so and ask what it needs to decide.
- Cut anything that's just a status update unless a decision hangs on it.
- Plain language. No filler.

Topics for this meeting:
[LIST YOUR TOPICS — and, for each, what must be decided. Rough notes are fine.]

Who's in the room: [ROLES — roles are safer than names in a tool you don't control]
Total time: [E.G. 60 MIN]

Before and after

Before — the vague topic list you'd paste in:

  • Q3 hiring plan
  • Marketing update
  • The pricing thing
  • Roadmap
  • Office lease

After — the kind of agenda it produces:

Decisions this meeting must reach 1. Do we approve the Q3 hiring plan, or trim it? 2. Do we move to the new pricing tier this quarter or next?

Agenda (60 min) - Pricing change — decide (20 min). Owner: Head of Product. The group needs to weigh churn risk against revenue. Decision: this quarter or next. - Q3 hiring plan — decide (15 min). Owner: you. Approve as proposed, or cut roles to protect runway. - Roadmap — discuss (15 min). No call today; surface the one trade-off we'll decide next time. - Marketing + office lease — FYI (5 min). Read in the pre-read; flag only if blocked. - Confirm decisions and owners (5 min).

Pre-read outline - Pricing: current tier, proposed tier, the churn-vs-revenue trade-off, what changes if we wait. - Hiring: roles, cost, runway impact at full plan vs. trimmed.

Make it yours

  • Tighten the clock. Add "This is a 30-minute meeting" and it'll cut or merge topics to fit.
  • Force a pre-mortem. Add "For the biggest decision, list two ways it could go wrong" so the room walks in with the risks already named.
  • Name the deciders. Paste who's in the room and add "Flag any decision where the right owner isn't present" — better to catch that before the meeting than during.
  • Reuse your shape. Paste a past agenda that worked and add "Match this structure."

Watch out for

  • An agenda doesn't run the room for you. This page produces the prep — a sharp agenda and a pre-read. Driving the conversation to an actual decision is still your job. When discussion drifts, you're the one who pulls it back to the call on the table.
  • The tool can't know your real priorities. It orders topics from what you typed, not from what's actually weighing on the business. Read the agenda back and confirm it leads with what truly must be decided. Reorder it if not.
  • Watch for status creep. Even a decision-first agenda can fill with updates if you let topics in that don't need a call. If something's just an FYI, keep it in the pre-read and out of the room's time.