One of the tricks to good leadership in my opinion, is running interference with my leadership or leadership from other parts of the organization, when they try and create new projects or otherwise divert resources to something that isn't a priority. It's a big part of my job to take these meetings so that the core teams delivering value don't get tasked or bogged down with them.

Meetings aren't going away, and in most cases these are requirements coming from outside of me or my team. Part of the trick of leadership is deciding what you can say a hard no to and not even engaging, what you need to do a soft no to by taking meetings (sometimes useless) in order to maintain good relationships, and then for things that are important but would cause new work, to do a lot of work at the leadership level ahead of new tasks impacting teams so that you can help them maintain their velocity.