A manager with 100% meetings is often one of a few cases:
1. They use useless meetings as shields for their time. That is, I can put myself on a meeting that I never attend so that I am less likely to be booked for that time. I will often have time blocks on my calendar because I work in functional workplaces for me, but this can be useful in toxic environments.
2. They have additional project/product management responsibilities. This is common for platform teams that they don't have PM support and have to wrangle people themselves.
3. They're really working 50+ hours a week and do their real work afterwards or before. This is common in places that oversubscribe managers. (I've hat 15 and even 25 reports before. I've even seen 50.)
4. They don't know how to say no and guard their time. This is common with younger managers.
1. They use useless meetings as shields for their time. That is, I can put myself on a meeting that I never attend so that I am less likely to be booked for that time. I will often have time blocks on my calendar because I work in functional workplaces for me, but this can be useful in toxic environments.
2. They have additional project/product management responsibilities. This is common for platform teams that they don't have PM support and have to wrangle people themselves.
3. They're really working 50+ hours a week and do their real work afterwards or before. This is common in places that oversubscribe managers. (I've hat 15 and even 25 reports before. I've even seen 50.)
4. They don't know how to say no and guard their time. This is common with younger managers.