Not every individual is the same. Being your manager would require a completely different approach than for most of your fellow colleagues in industry. I know I have quite a few unique reports that require motivation. Some you give work, and they plough through it. Others do that only when they're motivated, some are just slackers that you need to micro-manage in order to get any productivity out of them (assuming dismissal is not an option).
This is precisely what I was going to respond with. I "manage" a technical group of 27, and we have people that run the entire stretch between one guy I check in with every 4 hours, and another guy I talk with once a month to make sure we're on the same page and then just let him crack on until he needs something.
I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at being a manager (or, for that matter, enjoy it particularly), but the only universal truism I've discovered is that you have to let each person decide on their own what makes a good manager and try your best to be that manager for them.
Specifically, wit respect to one on ones, I just decided to punt, errr... delegate their scheduling to my reports at whatever periodicity they think is best and just make a point of asking at the end if it's still working on the current schedule for them.
