Nearly every ecologist attends technical meetings, spending and wasting hours in meeting rooms and on conference calls. Over time, they’ll see some meetings run efficiently, making good use of the time to meet the meeting’s objectives, and other meetings run poorly, where objectives are never met. Why are some meetings effective and others aren’t? More often than not, it’s due to the meeting leader. Anyone can be an effective technical meeting leader. As with anything else, it requires learning the skills and gaining experience. During this highly interactive workshop, you will do both. Workshop objectives include the following: (1) Learning to assess whether a technical meeting leadership position is being created in a way that will lead to its likely successful completion, prior to accepting it, (2) understanding what preparation is necessary, and what isn’t, for a successful technical meeting, (3) gaining sound meeting facilitation skills to meet the meeting’s goals and objectives, and (4) integrating what has been learned into not only participants’ meetings, but into their daily lives. A key task of a meeting leader is setting the tone throughout the meeting. It requires being a facilitator, a listener, a mediator, a motivator, a decision maker, and even occasionally a tyrant at various times during the meeting. It requires identifying personality-types and finding unique ways to work with each. Most importantly, it requires a singular focus on the meeting objectives and timelines. This workshop is meant for individuals at all career stages. Bring out the leader in you!