Yeah, the term "Loyalty Check" gives it a weird connotation. There are some executives that just want to hear "Yes" to their initiative, but, (1) the good ones don't, they prefer to hear corrective feedback late rather than not or all, and (2) if you offer corrective feedback and it isn't taken into consideration, it helps inform you about the kind of executive your working for. Loyalty should run both ways.

This is absolutely true. Checking if their reports are going to be impediments to their goals is critical for managers, especially if those goals were themselves aligned with THEIR managers. You don't want to assign significant responsibility to someone who might drag their feet on something.

Hmmm, it seems to me that if an executive is reaching across the organization for that kind of thing, that's a bad sign. It means the executive doesn't trust their leadership team (in the case of a skip-level) or their peer organization (in the case of a dotted-line meeting).

That said, bad signs don't always mean bad things; as the author indicated a "Loyalty check" can range from "Just wanted to check in on how things are going and hear some detailed updates straight from the folks at the coal-face" (very healthy and normal) to "So-and-so is getting ready to betray our entire organization and I want you to plug this anonymous USB key into their computer".

I got the attention of an exec at a meeting a few years ago when I asked about opportunities intra-office and wanted to apply to some positions at headquarters (I worked from a satellite office). This was pre-COVID and aside from the public conversation with the exec in the meeting with 200+ people, I’d only hear from him via the chain of command.

I got encouraged to apply to a few jobs at the main office and when I talked to managers there, everyone acted strange and uncomfortable about it and it was obvious nobody wanted someone working “remote” on their team. Eventually they said “oh we’re not hiring for that position this year”. Drastic way to keep remote people out.

But the exec never heard from me or solicited feedback so he wouldn’t have ever known this. So his initiative was dead in the water.

This was when I was more junior. Today I’d just have shot him an email giving him a status report on my experience but in my experience a lot of “ground level” folks are terrified of interacting with execs 5 levels above them in the org.

A follow up meeting with me would have definitely revealed what was going on and he could have taken some action.

Many execs lament junior employees being afraid of them. I bet you could have safely sent that email.

"Trust, but verify"

If the executive is consistently reaching across the organization that's a bad thing. If they do it once in a while to ensure they have made good staffing decisions, that's a good thing.

> Trust, but verify.

I don’t like that “but”. It implies trust and verification are opposites. To the contrary, verification is there to ensure that trust is not hurt in case of a mistake, misunderstanding, or whatever. “Trust and verify” is much better.

Thank you for this. "Trust but verify" never made any sense to me at all. If you have to verify, then there is no trust.

Ensuring that there hasn't been a misunderstanding makes a lot more sense. "Verify" is still a misleading word in that equation, though.

Agreed. These meetings can certainly end up being as cynically founded as the version posed in the post, but they're often also useful opportunities for execs to make sure that communication of the ultimate intent that led to the proposed work has made it through to the folks who will be tasked with doing the work. Understanding the business goal of the work makes it much easier to accurately weigh the inevitable tradeoffs that come up in projects without needing to run everything all the way back up the chain.