I think the power dynamic is variable based on management style. At my last company where I had anywhere between 8 and 12 FTE direct reports at a given time, I

I think the power dynamic is variable based on management style. At my last company where I had anywhere between 8 and 12 FTE direct reports at a given time, I found them to be invaluable in keeping up to date with them as a person and as an employee. The company was a marketing agency, and as such it was not likely that any more than a pair of developers would be on the same project and I would only rarely be involved with most of their projects at a day to day level that would let me more naturally keep in touch. The ground rules for the one on one were simple: - We can have them as often as you like, but we'll have at least one a month. I had some people I met with weekly, and some monthly, most were at two weeks. - The meeting is scheduled for 30 minutes, but I've booked the room and my time for a full hour so that we don't have to abruptly cut short our conversation. - I'll get the conversation started with the general "how are things" lead off, but the session is mostly lead by my employee. There is no topic off limits. Most one on ones followed the same path. We'd get caught up on current project work which would lead to them asking me some technical questions they are currently encountering. If they were having some issues with their project manager they'd ask for some guidance in how best to deal with them, or ask me to provide some shielding. If we had an all company meeting and were implementing some changes we'd spend some time discussing those. Finally, we'd spend the last part of our conversation discussing some new tech or tools that we've stumbled upon that we think are pretty cool. The only deviation from this flow would be is if the employee was having some performance problems that we were trying to correct. I would lay this out at the beginning and let the conversation go from there. I feel like these meetings were very empowering to my team, and the best way I could show my commitment to them. If our meeting ended with me having to do something (intervene with a PM, follow up in some fashion to get more info, some random task I needed to perform, etc.) I made it a priority to start the process as soon as the meeting was over and to see it through to completion. I kept a Trello board of every action item originating from our one on ones and made sure I checked in with it every morning to follow up on anything that was not yet completed. I feel like because of my candidness and open communication style coupled with the personal guarantee that promises made in one on ones were ALWAYS followed through to their completion, my employees were very candid in our one on ones. If they thought some policy was stupid they said it. I told each on of them, if they were just having a bad day, they could use the meeting as a gripe fest, and sometimes they did.