How to make teammates to be heard

Have you ever tried stepping aside from a workplace “rat race”? Today’s environment often locks us into a seemingly endless loop of plan–do–assess. We push teams’ productivity without pausing to understand what truly fuels success. The old assumption says a manager must maintain “just enough pressure for success, but not so much that people burn out.” One popular way to apply this pressure is through one-to-one meetings.

Let’s talk about these meetings. A typical one-to-one is a private, recurring call with each team member. Many how-to guides portray them as a space of openness, controlled performance, and growth. Often, meetings include records of past discussions, personal achievement plans, performance overviews, and so on. The intent is obvious: to give managers more control over their people by uncovering needs, solving problems, and monitoring performance.

But modern workplaces have become addicted to “effectiveness” and “productivity” sometimes at the cost of our humanity. Managers hope for a performance silver bullet, and the one-to-one meeting has turned into either something that gets skipped due to urgent tasks or, conversely, an instrument for pushing people harder. Personally, I believe we need to rethink how we use one-to-ones – if not stop the traditional usage altogether.

I have been observing increasing loneliness among employees facing challenges, tight deadlines, and time-bound tasks. This leads to burnout, endless rotation, and never-ending hiring and onboarding processes. Stress from recent layoffs, the fear of AI, and ineffective processes all diminish the value of people’s natural talents and skills. What’s worse – teams actually lose productivity, which only convinces some leaders that AI should replace “low performers”.

Is there a chance that management (including SLTs) are ruining their businesses by making the wrong bet? Do we really need to enforce pressure to meet deadlines? Do we need to maintain a constant threat of layoffs? Is that the right path to success? I doubt it.

I’ve been running 1-to-1s for many years, trying to find a way to unify teams, to build trust, and to make everyone feel heard and valued. My aim is to help teams become self-sufficient and self-organized and to let people make flexible decisions.

Often I hear the mantra of “leadership openness” and skepticism about the value of face-to-face calls. Personally, I found that the “open door” approach never actually works. Well, it might work for the few who are career-driven and use that door to advance. But for everyone else, it doesn’t. Humans generally tend to focus on tasks first, not to open their hearts to managers.

What really works and brings results is focusing on people – on the teammates. Focus, time, and patience are the keys to forming a cohesive, effective team. It takes consistent effort to get people comfortable enough to share their needs. To achieve that, a leader must shift the focus away from numbers, recordings, and trends – anything that reduces a person to a mere metric. While managers have countless tools to measure or assess performance, the team itself often has zero influence on how or why these measures are applied. The true focus must be on what is truly important to the teammate, not the manager. By dismissing excessive tracking and focusing on each individual’s perspective, we create an environment where people feel heard, valued, and genuinely supported.

The 1-to-1s bring a unique opportunity to build trust – but only if a leader recognizes that this meeting is a top priority. Make sure you have enough patience, because it often takes more time when a colleague comes from a toxic workplace. Healing the team is never an easy journey – make realistic estimations here. Schedule your 1-to-1s for the entire business year, refuse to let anything distract you, and never accept overlapping invites at that time. If you must reschedule, do it promptly. This consistency helps teammates feel valued.

But what is more important – focus on the colleague. Follow their needs, their wishes, their agenda. Don’t wait at the door; invite them in to spend their time (not yours) as they see fit. Of course, you can ask your own questions, but don’t dominate. Keep in mind that you have plenty of opportunities to speak; your teammates – don’t. Ultimately, by centering your attention on your colleague’s perspective in every 1-to-1, you build the foundation for the team’s next steps in growth.

To sum up, 1-to-1s are the right choice for any leader whose goal is to build a self-managed team. These calls help you understand every team member, build trust, and enable true learning from mistakes. They’re not the only tool in a leader’s belt, but they’re among the most powerful so long as they shift the focus away from the achievements and back onto the people who make those achievements possible.

#Leadership #TeamManagement #ServantLeadership #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeEngagement #PeopleDevelopment #TrustBuilding