"sometimes I don’t want to discuss my actual career goals because it’s already been signaled that they are not in line with my current role or the needs of the company. I appreciate that a manager wants to “get to know me” and “build trust”, but let’s be honest, at the end of the day the manager is an agent of the company"

Completely agree with you. There is always an implicit agenda -- maximize the amount of work they can get out of me for as little money as possible. If I were a consultant, would I sit down for a weekly chat with a client in the same sort of 1-on-1 format? No way. The reason we are asked to have these meetings is so that management can gain useful information from us to then use as they see fit. That's it. We should approach these meetings accordingly.