AT&T CEO John Stankey recently issued a memo acknowledging declining engagement after rolling out a five-day return-to-office mandate.
The reaction was immediate and revealing - when autonomy is constrained, engagement drops. Employees respond not to rules, but to trust, purpose, and agency.
AT&T’s history offers an even deeper lesson. In the 1960s, the company dismissed data communications as a niche market.
Bureaucratic rigidity and centralized control limited imagination. What could have been a trillion-dollar opportunity slipped away because structure and culture prioritized process over exploration.
Today, the same principle applies to leadership and performance.
Mandates cannot create innovation, nor can control substitute for engagement. Highly skilled talent are motivated by challenge, ownership, and clarity of purpose.
Organizations that treat results as outputs of trust, not hours or compliance, unlock more sustainable growth.
The real question for leaders - where are your policies or habits unintentionally limiting autonomy? Are you creating systems that guide focus and alignment, or systems that reinforce compliance at the expense of creativity?
True leverage comes from balancing accountability with empowerment.
When people feel trusted and capable of shaping outcomes, engagement rises, innovation accelerates, and your organization becomes more resilient.
How are you creating that balance in your teams today?