Who invited the boss from the ’90s?
We gave him a VPN, a time-tracking app, and access to Teams. And he came back. Even bad B-movies have sequels, so our old-school manager wasn’t going to be an exception.
The controlling boss has been resurrected, more digitalized than ever: armed with dashboards, daily connection reports, and automated alerts for inactivity. For some, hybrid work has been the catalyst for a new trust. For others, it’s just an excuse to reignite old fears.
The Illusion of Remote Control
For a while, we believed that digital transformation would also transform leadership. That we’d replace surveillance with goals, schedules with deliverables, constant supervision with autonomy. But many organizations — and many bosses — never made that mental shift.
And so, the classics returned:
- “Why were you in gray at 1:27 PM?”
- “How many minutes were you on calls today?”
- “Where are Monday’s productivity reports?”
Two extremes, one problem
Today, companies exist on two radical extremes:
1. The Ones That Have Eliminated All Control
Companies like GitLab and Basecamp (and a few others I won’t name due to confidentiality) have eliminated time tracking and mandatory presence. What matters are the goals. Each professional manages their schedule and deliverables.
GitLab, as a fully remote company, promotes a culture of self-management and transparency, and does not use surveillance tools to monitor employees’ daily activity, focusing on outcomes and clear documentation instead. Their approach? Results and clarity.
Basecamp opposes the “surveillance” of its employees, banning the integration of monitoring software on its platform. They also disapprove of practices such as taking screenshots or tracking keystrokes.
Sounds ideal. But…
What happens when goals are not that easy to measure?
Or when they take months to develop, with no intermediate deliverables to provide visibility?
In these environments, the lack of structure can become disorienting. Not all teams or cultures are ready to self-manage without guidance or checkpoints.
2. The Ones That Control Even the Mouse Movement
Real examples of companies that install software like Time Doctor or Hubstaff, capable of:
- Capturing random screenshots.
- Measuring keystrokes per minute.
- Generating alerts if no activity is detected.
The result: an appearance of productivity, but no guarantee of value.
In environments like this, the message is clear: “I don’t trust you.” What starts as an attempt at efficiency can end up causing disengagement, turnover, and a loss of commitment.
“We Do It Because We Can”
In Spain, legislation allows employee monitoring under certain conditions, such as transparency and respect for privacy, although the term “privacy” can carry a high degree of ambiguity… Companies must clearly inform workers about any form of surveillance, including tracking mouse activity or keystrokes. Many companies and large corporations, like Accenture for example, have the technical ability to monitor activity on corporate devices, though the implementation of these practices can vary depending on the region, client, or project.
In other words: “We do it because we can,” both technically and legally. But the following questions or dilemmas arise: Do we really want to do it? What is the cost-benefit of doing it versus not doing it? What are the underlying reasons that have led us to implement it?
“Just like human beings, companies or corporations also have traumas that sometimes remain ‘unexorcised.’ Their actions today are the consequences of past experiences, some of which have not yet been metabolized. If they exert excessive control over their employees, it is often because they have already suffered the consequences of distrust or the abuse of freedom in the past. Like any organism that has been hurt, companies also develop defense mechanisms to avoid suffering again.”
Hybrid Work Tests Real Leadership
Hybrid work doesn’t create bad leaders; it merely exposes them. In the past, physical presence masked shortcomings. Now, managing requires:
- Communicating clearly.
- Delegating with judgment.
- Trusting others’ judgment.
And this is where many fail.
Because leading remotely demands a type of leadership that is mature, structured, and emotionally intelligent. But instead, figures emerge who seek to control the uncontrollable, as if efficiency could be measured by connection time.
What Do We Do with Control?
It’s not about choosing between all or nothing. It’s about designing systems where:
- Objectives are clear, but so are the processes to achieve them.
- Deadlines for achieving these objectives are reasonable. They should not only be explicit (day, month, time of day) but also agreed upon with the individuals responsible for carrying them out, in a transparent and clear manner.
- Autonomy is progressive, based on experience and role complexity.
- Leaders know how to guide without suffocating, correcting when necessary, not supervising by default.
Inspiring Examples:
- At Spotify, squads (autonomous, cross-functional teams, similar to “mini-internal startups”) have real autonomy, but within an accountability framework that provides visibility without controlling day-to-day activities. This Harvard Business Review article examines how Spotify seeks to balance autonomy and responsibility, innovation and control.
- At Doist (creators of Todoist), the culture is 100% asynchronous and remote, but based on rigorous documentation and transparent objectives. In this article written by Doist’s Marketing Director, she shares her vision on how to build trust in a remote work environment through autonomy and transparency.
Leading Without Spying
The return of the controlling manager may have occurred due to a specific context (did someone say pandemic?), and was also facilitated by technology. Context as a trigger and technology as a catalyst. But the problem is cultural. And when it’s cultural, it’s often deeply tied to beliefs and perceptions.
It isn’t solved with more tools, but with a more mature view of work and people.
“This more mature view of people must be ‘coast to coast’. That is, from end to end, without disruptions. From the selection process, but continuing through onboarding, full integration, and the development of the individual in their role. Many problems arise when this approach isn’t applied comprehensively, and we only adopt this mature view during certain stages.”
Because hybrid work doesn’t need more surveillance. It requires analyzing past situations and understanding what happened, followed by taking emotional distance to determine what the organization and the employee truly need, but always beyond the short-term solution… which, by the way, should never be interpreted as punishment or retaliation.
Analysis, modeling, controlled emotional involvement, decision-making, communication, monitoring… These disciplines, too diverse, require a holistic vision, an inherent quality of leadership.
