What is a skip-level meeting?
A skip-level meeting is a meeting between a leader and the people who report to that leader's direct reports, without the middle manager in the room. It can be one-on-one or a small group. The aim is open communication across levels. The leader hears what is working and what needs to improve, and team members get to know senior leadership.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
A CRO who hears only from managers gets a filtered view of the field. Time with sellers shows whether coaching happens and where deals get stuck inside the company. GitLab's public handbook says skip-levels are not for checking on a manager's performance by going around them. A leader who uses them that way risks the trust of the managers in between. For a leader who has just inherited a team, skip-levels are a direct way to learn how the team works day to day.
Example
A newly hired VP Sales at a testing and inspection company meets each branch's sellers in small groups during her first weeks. Several mention that quotes wait on a single estimator. She raises it with the branch managers as a resourcing issue and keeps the sellers' individual comments private.
"When did I last hear from our sellers directly, without their manager in the room?"
Sources
- Skip Level Meetings (The GitLab Handbook) checked 9 Oct 2026