> If you don't say it out loud, and assume people will pick it up via osmosis, you're a bad leader. To some extent, I agree, though it largely depends on the r

> If you don't say it out loud, and assume people will pick it up via osmosis, you're a bad leader. To some extent, I agree, though it largely depends on the role. Setting expectations clearly is important as a leader, as is providing clear, timely feedback when expectations aren't met. In college, it's a wake up call to students, because professors do not provide followup the way grade school teachers do. You are given your work and expected to turn it in. For engineers, it's largely as you said--you're an adult. Act like an adult. If you're getting hammered on company time, we'll have a discussion about it, and why it's happening. On the flip-side, I had a house-hold employee who dressed completely inappropriately for her job. I wrote her up about it and sent her information (guidelines) around appropriate dress code for her role. > How is remote different than in-person? Physical presence can correlate with productivity. That may be the sole signal that triggers a boss to look at actual productivity metrics. There are other approximations, such as responsiveness to communications (email, slack etc) as well. But I posit the leaders who are spying on employees have trained their intuition to be based on physical presence. Without that, they're scared. I follow the model that the team owns their deliverables, and delivery dates, with input from me. I advocate shorter deliverables or checkpoints to uncover issues with estimates sooner, but ultimately leave it up to the team to execute. If something isn't delivered on time, I as a leader address the underlying causes. My philosophy as a boss is "You have a lot of flexibility. Just get your work done when you say you will." And not everyone has the maturity to work in such an environment. I hope that explains my feelings more clearly.