Since Li metal exhibits considerable morphological changes during Li plating/stripping, the use of Li metal as a secondary battery anode material has been limited. Recently, in order to suppress dead Li formation during Li plating, a method of hosting Li metal in a stable structure in plating process has attracted attention. Although many types of conductive Li host materials have been introduced to improve the electrochemical properties of Li metal anodes, the mechanism by which conductive Li hosting materials inhibit dead Li in each system has not been precisely investigated. In this study, we introduce a Carbon-based protective layer on the Li metal surface and investigate the effect of the protective layer on the formation of dead Li. To this end, the adhesion properties of the plated Li and the morphological changes of the Li metal anodes during plating are investigated according to the presence of the protective layer. Furthermore, the effect of protective layer on the electrochemical properties of Li metal anodes is investigated. The protective layer holds plated Li over entire area firmly, resulting in reduced dead Li during repeated cycling. Therefore, a unit cell composed of a Li metal anode having a protective layer exhibits remarkably improved cycle performance (99.4 mAh g^-1 after 250 cycles at 1C-rate), which was more than a factor of 3 compared to that of the Li metal w/o protective layer (31.3 mAh g^-1 after 250 cycles at 1C-rate). Furthermore, the former showed improved rate capability (63.5 mAh g^-1 after 35 cycles at 10C-rate), which was improved by more than a factor of 1.4 compared to that of the Li metal w/o protective layer (45.8 mAh g^-1 after 35 cycles at 10C-rate).