In theory, I think this is a plausible positive scenario. In practice, however, I've never seen it play out like this (huge anecdata here).
I've worked remote most of my career, and in my experience, the politics and work theaterisms are still there, just different.
For example, someone's perceived level of "effort" often becomes a function of how responsive they are. Do they respond to Slack messages at random hours, when team members in different time zones/aggressive managers ping them? Do they frequently communicate with the team via video calls and Slack discussions? Just like in normal office politics, their actual productivity or work quality is assessed less than their appearance of engagement.
That's just an example, but my experience in general has been that remote doesn't change anything about the cultural of management at a company. Whatever metrics mattered in person, there will be remote equivalents to replace them.
The positive here is that good leadership is still good leadership, remote or not. The negative, obviously, is that remote isn't the balm for poor leadership that many hope it will be.
I've worked remote most of my career, and in my experience, the politics and work theaterisms are still there, just different.
For example, someone's perceived level of "effort" often becomes a function of how responsive they are. Do they respond to Slack messages at random hours, when team members in different time zones/aggressive managers ping them? Do they frequently communicate with the team via video calls and Slack discussions? Just like in normal office politics, their actual productivity or work quality is assessed less than their appearance of engagement.
That's just an example, but my experience in general has been that remote doesn't change anything about the cultural of management at a company. Whatever metrics mattered in person, there will be remote equivalents to replace them.
The positive here is that good leadership is still good leadership, remote or not. The negative, obviously, is that remote isn't the balm for poor leadership that many hope it will be.