Chairing meetings is a profession

A director at a large municipality asked me to chair some meetings in his

place. He would be attending as a participant. He is new on the job and

wants to concentrate on the content, the people and the atmosphere.

Managing the meeting process was my responsibility.

Chairing meetings is a profession. You must ensure that the meeting

achieves its aims and interfere as less as possible with regard to the

content. Managers frequently experience difficulties with this, because

they are often the specialist themselves on the subject. How often

do the most knowledgeable employees, sometimes by lack of growth

opportunities, get promoted to manager?

If specialists become managers this is not always the most favorable

choice. Managers who have a better knowledge of the matter than their

employees, tend to solve the problems themselves instead of facilitating

their colleagues to do so.

Of course, a certain basic knowledge is indispensable to be a good

conversation partner. But being able to listen, being able to make

connections – between people and matters – is a much more useful

quality for a good manager.

Job specialists who chair a meeting often have to bite their tongues not

to interfere with the discussions. With this brand new director it is the

other way around: he appoints someone else to do the managing, thereby

enabling himself to solely focus on the content. I think, this decision

reflects wisdom.