Awkward.

Seven of us now. Sitting around the table. Five minutes since the start of the meeting. We’ve used up our chit-chat allowance and wonder if you will show.

In the scheme of things relevant to a company’s success, showing up late to a meeting is not the end of the world. When it happens a lot, when it’s always the same person and that human is a leader, I have a severe tick when it comes to this human. Here is my chain of increasingly frustrated and snarky reasoning:

Here’s my inner dialog:

• Do you know that you are late?
• Do you understand why you are consistently late?
• Do you understand the total cost of this lateness? It’s the room full of humans waiting for you, plus the repeat of the information they’ll need to hear when you arrive.
• Do you understand the subjectively immeasurable credibility hit you take each time this happens?

With that out of my system, let’s get to the heart of my concern. If you understand the problem and further understand the cost of this behavior, why is it continually happening?

Many meetings are predictable. Look at your calendar first thing in the morning. Is this an achievable set of work? No double bookings. Good. Do you see where you are likely going to be time-constrained? You’ve got a meeting you must attend that always runs long — ok, move the meeting after it. You’ve got one meeting on the opposite side of the campus? Ok, build in travel time and adjust the calendar as necessary.

Some meetings are not. Day has started, and the universe is throwing you curveballs. It happens. A reliably stable meeting ran long. Did you tell the next meeting to move on without you? Wait, you need to be there? Ok, move to the next available slot — quickly and alert attendees. Loudly. An important meeting landed in the middle of your everything? Ok, what needs to shift? Shift it. Loudly and promptly.

But it just keeps happening. Five minutes late to everything. Too much on the calendar, too many curveballs. You are in a constant state of stress, and this is where I will stop us for a second to state the obvious.

There are leadership types who believe this level of busy is correct. They believe a key part of the job is this level of stress and scurrying hither and fro. Some humans find a modicum of pride in this state. You know, the meeting doesn’t start… without me.

To all the serial show-up-laters who meet this criteria,

You are a failing leader.

Strong words. You thought your consistent five minutes late was a quirk. A minor operational error, but in my book, it’s a strategic flaw because you are not identifying and fixing the fundamentals. There are so many minutes in a day, there are only so many meetings you can personally attend, and these are knowable quantities. Failure to address these fundamentals means you are not growing as a leader.

Who can go instead of you? No one? Why? What is so essential about you? Experience? Really? How does one gain experience? You give others the same opportunity that someone else gave you. You ask them, “Can you attend this review?” They look panicked, so you tell them, “Here is the essential context you need. These three things will likely happen; here’s what I do when they occur.” They look less panicked, and you finish with, “I know you can do this.” They grin. Nervously.

Delegation. This is one solution. There are many more, but I’m not listing them because it is your job as a leader to identify the problem that ails your team and be accountable for properly and permanently fixing them.

So you can show up for a meeting on time.