What's backfiring? There's two levels here: at the first level, you don't want to sweat anyone (capable or otherwise) about coming to work late because it indi

What's backfiring? There's two levels here: at the first level, you don't want to sweat anyone (capable or otherwise) about coming to work late because it indicates fundamentally messed up priorities: you aren't paying them to keep a seat warm. If you set them free to come in whenever they want, they will. If it gives you indigestion because you have no idea where your employees are, you need to figure out why that is and solve the real problem (and if the real problem is "my boss thinks I'm not doing my job if I'm not sweating my employees about seat-warming", my condolences, because you are totally fucked). Don't confuse this with people who advocate self-management, where you just trust your people to do the right thing and set them loose without any structure at all. That's a much more subtle skill that requires the right relationships and the right situation and frankly is a gigantic hassle. If you've got a group of unmanageable geniuses who seem to be productive despite the chaos feel free to try but most teams who get things done do not operate this way and don't let the woo-woo peddlers tell you otherwise. You're doing pretty well if the people who work for you feel like you have real, specific expectations of them but also have 'wiggle room' to do anything they want (just not everything they want).