Do you think Managing Directors should lunch with their employees?

All emplyees should eat together, and what happens in the lunch room or is spoken of in the lunch room stays in the lunch room.

Lunch is not work, there are no managing directors at lunch tables, only people.

EDIT: Things are slightly different where I live, and also I am speaking from an idealistic point of view, even here where eating is a highly social thing, there have been exceptions.

I don’t think it’s necessary for them to have lunch with their employees, and in your case, it doesn’t look like a good idea.
Are these lunches mandatory, or do you feel some other pressure to attend them?

I had some decent bosses when I worked for AT&T, and I occasionally went to lunch with some of them.
This was done in an enlightened manner, in that we knew my performance evaluations weren’t based on my schmoozing skills, but on my actual at-work performance instead.

Something I think is more effective, and I’m pretty sure was coined as part of HP’s management policy, is “Management by Walking Around”. Management are encouraged to visit staff routinely and see what’s up. If you do that regularly and constructively, rank and file can trust that it will be nothing to be afraid of, and helps everyone do their job better.
If your MD does that often enough, it wouldn’t be alarming when they show up at the lunch table.

Of Mcdonalds – yes.

It completely depends upon the company you work for and the dynamic between the managing director and the employees. In your particular case, it seems like a bad idea because you guys feel like you are being spied upon.

In the company that I used to work for, we would regularly eat lunch with everybody from the very top down, to the lowest person on the rung and everyone in between. Most of the time that was in the lunch room, every now and then when we’d go out to lunch somewhere, and occasionally at these huge potlucks that we used to throw (for just about any reason under the sun).

The smart people (who were often not the people at the top) would only talk about outside stuff like family, softball games, recipes and where they were going on vacation. It seemed like the higher up the ladder people were, the more likely it would be that they would accidentally blab out confidential information (which would then get spread down the grapevine)

I agree with MBWA (management by walking around), but I don’t think you ever break the professional barrier socially. You’re always watching out. At no moment do you want to let something slip that could cost you your job.

Heavens no. As managing director, my job is not to befriend you. My job is to spy on you.

We all get into our underwear the same way. With that said, here is my answer.

For many years, police superior officers, have had lunch with police officers. Our situation may be different than the situation you have described. We do not “shudder”, if a superior officer wants to have lunch with us. Male or female, it does not matter.

After all, if we don’t have each others back, then who will?