Let’s put it bluntly: there are many bad leaders in our organizations. These are people who have grown up in corporations, are solid in the areas in which they have been trained, but paradoxically do not have the skills to manage people.
And of course, for those who reverse the sacred paradigm of controlling things and managing people, remote work is terrible. For those who control everything without ever granting trust or autonomy, it is an unacceptable work format.
There is a story that is not making the papers: these bad bosses are starting to have serious problems. There is already tons of empirical evidence indicating that greater autonomy, trust and empowerment lead to higher levels of creativity and extraordinary results.
Now that the nightmare of the pandemic is over, the organizational world is divided between team work from home vs. team work 100% in the company. Who won? The match clearly has a winner: flexibility.
In contexts of talent shortage, making the organization the space where talent chooses to develop is a strategic objective. Rigidities do not seem to be in line with that objective.
Talent does not leave organizations, it flees from bad bosses. Fearful and insecure leaders, who cannot manage people they do not see, have become a real problem for modern organizations.
They have not been able to understand that productivity is related to results and results are related to objectives. The Fordist paradigm that related it to hours has fallen.
Remote work is not only a functional modality for technology-based organizations; in general terms it saves costs, avoids relocations and offers freedom to achieve a better worlife balance.
It is a true cultural change that requires leaders capable of managing by trust and not by control.
Are we witnessing the first stage in the collection of case studies that will give rise to the theory of Remote Management?
Time will give us part of the answer. What is certain is that remote work is here to stay, requires solutions that provide flexicurity to the parties and will continue to grow exponentially.