Start meetings on time. If you hold up meetings for latecomers, you are treating the people who did show up on time as if their time is less valuable. If you make a habit of starting late, people will assume your 9:00 AM meeting really begins at 9:20 AM and at 9:00 AM they will all still be grabbing coffee and wondering out loud about who took the last doughnut.

Respect your audience: end on time.  Have an agenda and stick to it. If you are speaking at the meeting, be prepared with your material. People who are unprepared talk and talk and talk until attendees are slipping under the table.

We all know of certain people who can talk the leg off a chair and those who can derail a meeting onto the strangest topics.  As the meeting leader, you are in charge.  In your mind, you may be tackling them at the knees and throwing them to the conference room floor.  In reality, a simple, “We seem to have slipped off topic and we need to return to our agenda…” will do.