Managers filter information — intentionally and unintentionally. They surface what they believe is important, resolve problems before they escalate, and interpret team sentiment through their own lens. Skip-level meetings give senior leaders a direct line to the employee experience that sits beneath this filter — surfacing what managers cannot see, or are too close to report objectively. Run well, they build trust at every level of the organization. Run poorly, they undermine the managers in between.
What Is a Skip-Level Meeting?
A skip-level meeting is a one-on-one or small group conversation between a senior leader and employees who report to that leader’s direct reports — “skipping” one level of management. The purpose is to gather direct insight into team health, culture, and operational reality without it being filtered through the intermediate manager. Skip-level meetings are not performance reviews, not complaint escalation sessions, and not a way to manage around managers — they are a leadership visibility and trust-building tool.
Why Skip-Level Meetings Matter
As organizations grow, senior leaders become increasingly dependent on their direct reports’ interpretation of what is happening below. This creates two risks. First, managers under pressure may only surface positive information to protect their team — and themselves. Second, even well-intentioned managers have blind spots about how their own behavior affects their team. According to Harvard Business Review research on leadership visibility, senior leaders who maintain direct connections with multiple organizational levels make significantly better talent and strategic decisions than those who rely exclusively on their immediate reports for information.
How to Run an Effective Skip-Level Meeting
Step 1: Prepare the Intermediate Manager First
Before scheduling skip-level meetings, inform the manager whose team you will be meeting: “I’m planning to have skip-level conversations with your team — I want to understand their experience and give them visibility to senior leadership. I’ll let you know themes I hear, without attributing specific comments.” This prevents the manager from feeling surveilled and ensures they can prepare their team.
Step 2: Frame the Meeting Clearly for Employees
Employees arrive at skip-level meetings uncertain about the purpose. Open by being explicit: “This is not a performance conversation. I’m not here to evaluate you or to go back to your manager with what you say. I’m here to understand what it’s like to work here, what’s working well, and where we could do better as an organization.”
Step 3: Use Open-Ended Questions That Surface Real Themes
Effective skip-level questions:
- “What’s going well on the team that you’d want leadership to know about?”
- “What obstacles most frequently slow down your work?”
- “Do you feel you receive the feedback and development support you need to grow?”
- “Is there anything about how the team operates that you think leadership would want to know?”
- “What would make your experience here significantly better?”
Avoid asking employees to directly evaluate their manager — that belongs in an upward feedback survey with proper anonymity protections. Skip-levels should surface organizational themes, not function as informal performance reviews of the intermediate manager.
What to Do With What You Hear
Share Themes With the Intermediate Manager
After skip-level conversations, share the anonymized themes with the manager: “A few themes came up across several conversations that I want to share with you. Clarity of priorities and feedback frequency were mentioned most often. I’d like to discuss what we can do together to address them.” This positions the skip-level data as a development input for the manager, not a performance indictment. Handled this way, skip-levels reinforce rather than undermine the manager relationship.
Close the Loop With Employees
Skip-level meetings that produce no visible follow-through signal to employees that the conversation was theater. Even a brief note or team meeting acknowledging “I heard these themes and here is what we are working on” transforms the skip-level from a data extraction exercise into a genuine trust-building interaction. Connect the insights to your continuous feedback culture and talent development priorities.
Frequently Asked Questions About Skip-Level Meetings
How often should skip-level meetings be held?
What if an employee raises a serious complaint in a skip-level meeting?
How is a skip-level meeting different from upward feedback?
Bottom Line
Skip-level meetings give senior leaders direct, unfiltered insight into the employee experience below the management layer. They work when the intermediate manager is informed in advance, employees are given clear framing about the purpose, questions focus on organizational themes rather than manager evaluation, and the themes heard are followed up with visible action. Used consistently, they are one of the most effective tools for maintaining organizational health as a company scales.
