When unspoken expectations become measures of commitment.
Someone said something to me this week that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
We were talking about the different ways work is done, and mentioned in their mind working remote to them is someone “sitting on a bean bag responding to an email.” This was followed by the perception that if someone was asking for flexibility in their schedule or requesting remote work, perhaps they should take a pay cut.
I laughed.
But the comments stuck with me.
Maybe because I’ve lived in Nebraska now for almost 15 years, where some of the most meaningful work that drives our communities and economy has never happened inside four walls.
It happens in fields and pastures, behind the wheel of a pickup or tractor, and sometimes on the back of a horse or 4-wheeler.
There was an irony in those comments I couldn’t quite shake.
In my mind, we should be among the first to understand that a cubicle has never been required to validate that meaningful work is happening.
So why, when it comes to leadership and professional roles, have we become so quick to associate where someone works—or how physically visible they work—with how committed they are to the work?
There used to be clearer lines around many roles.
Work happened at work. Meetings happened during work hours. A phone call after hours generally meant something was actually important.
Technology, remote work, flexible schedules, global organizations, and our general ability to reach one another have blurred those lines.
Flexibility has created tremendous opportunity—but there’s a strange tradeoff:
When the boundaries become flexible, expectations can become invisible.
Most leaders don’t explicitly say:
You need to answer your phone at 8:30 p.m.
You should check email while you’re on vacation.
You need to attend every meeting to prove you’re engaged.
You should sacrifice personal commitments when work gets busy.
But people start watching what gets rewarded.
Who responds fastest?
Who is always available?
Who never says no?
Who joins the call despite being on PTO?
And eventually, availability can start masquerading as commitment.
Dedication and performance should be measured by whether someone fulfills the responsibilities of the role—not by how much of themselves they’re willing to surrender to it.
But boundaries don’t eliminate accountability.
Committing to a role means accepting the expectations that come with it. There will be seasons that require more. Important calls at inconvenient times. Deadlines, travel, hard conversations, and moments when the team genuinely needs us to step up.
That’s part of being “all in.”
What shouldn’t be part of being all in is continually having to prove it through unnecessary sacrifice.
We confuse physical visibility with productivity.
For a long time in business settings, work was physically observable.
You arrived. You sat at a desk. You attended meetings. Someone could see you working.
Presence became one of the easiest proxies for commitment.
Knowledge work disrupted that.
When the output is thinking, analysis, strategy, writing, problem-solving, relationship building, decision-making, or creating something new, the work itself isn’t always particularly visible.
Someone staring out a window for ten minutes may actually be doing more meaningful work than someone furiously answering emails in a cubicle.
And that can be uncomfortable because leaders lose an easy form of control:
I can see you, therefore I know you’re working.
I think we’ve blurred the line between being all in and being always available.
Being committed to a role should mean delivering on the responsibilities you’ve accepted. It means being accountable, responsive when it matters, prepared, engaged, dependable, and willing to step up when the situation requires it.
But somewhere along the way, we’ve added other signals.
Where are you working?
What time did you log on?
Were you at the meeting?
How quickly did you answer?
Did you take the afternoon off?
Were you available after hours?
None of those things, independently, tell us whether meaningful work is actually happening.
Don’t get me wrong. There are jobs that physically require presence. There are conversations better had face-to-face. Teams benefit from time together. Relationships are built differently in person. Certain stages of someone’s development may require more proximity. Customers may need us physically present.
But those are reasons for presence.
That’s different from assuming presence itself is evidence of productivity.
If we require presence, we should be able to articulate what presence accomplishes—not simply assume presence equals performance.
And maybe underneath all of this is another uncomfortable word:
Trust.
If I only trust someone’s work ethic when I can physically observe them working, how much trust do I actually have?
Accountability and trust aren’t opposites.
In fact, clear accountability may be what makes greater trust possible. When people understand what they’re responsible for, when they need to be available, what outcomes matter, and how success will be measured, leaders don’t have to rely as heavily on physical presence as evidence that work is getting done.
Clarity gives us something better to manage than presence: results.
So maybe the real failure isn’t remote versus office.
It’s unclear expectations.
If I’m leading someone, have I clearly defined what success looks like?
Have I communicated what outcomes I expect?
Have I clearly outlined when I need you to be available?
Do you know what requires an immediate response and what can wait?
Which meetings genuinely require you?
When is physical presence important—and why?
Where do you have autonomy?
What am I actually holding you accountable for?
Because if I can’t answer those questions as a leader, requiring someone to sit where I can see them doesn’t solve my leadership problem.
It just makes me feel like I have more control over it.
There will be exceptions. Busy seasons. Emergencies. Major projects. Leadership positions with greater availability expectations.
That’s real, and I’m by no means discrediting it.
But those exceptions should be clearly stated and understood expectations of the role—not an invisible loyalty or commitment test.
So here’s something to ask yourself this week:
If someone on your team produced exceptional work, met every commitment, served the customer well, supported their teammates, and consistently delivered results—but you couldn’t see where they were doing it—
would you still believe they were all in?
If the answer is no, maybe the conversation isn’t really about productivity.
Maybe it’s about our own expectations of what commitment is supposed to look like.
And if there are things we genuinely need from people—their presence, availability, responsiveness, flexibility, or willingness to step up—then we owe it to them to make those expectations clear.
People shouldn’t have to guess what “all in” or “committed” means. Nor should we ever assume they know what our expectations are.
And leaders shouldn’t have to guess whether someone is meeting those expectations.
Define them. Communicate them. Then hold people accountable to them.
But before we hold others accountable to the expectations we’ve created, perhaps we need to start by holding ourselves accountable for making them clear.
—HL
The Strategic Cowgirl
