Currently I manage five managers who in turn lead small tech teams of 3-6 people. I've about 6 years of experience at this level and have had good results and feedback in the past. The teams are pretty independent and I give the managers plenty of space to do their thing. I attended the various agile ceremonies when I can, to observe and take notes. I have 1-1s every week with my mangers which I try to keep non-technical and focused more on how things are going, advising, career growth and supporting however I can. The managers themselves are at varying levels of experience and capability in their own right. I have skip level meetings once a month so that I can hear about life in the teams directly from the engineers and also how those managers are performing.

I'm curious to hear how others stay close enough to what's going on in their managers' teams so that they have enough context to be useful and to stay informed on those teams, outside of what I mentioned above. Are there particular types of recurring meetings you have that your find more useful for example? Or do you ask your managers to provide particular feedback to keep you up to date?