Why does your boss really want you back in the office? New research points to ego

Your boss says everyone needs to come back to the office for “culture.” Maybe it’s about collaboration, mentorship, innovation, or those spontaneous conversations we’re constantly told happen beside the coffee machine.

But what if there’s another reason some leaders want to see those desks filled again?

New research has found a link between leader narcissism and resistance to remote work, raising an uncomfortable possibility: For some bosses, return-to-office mandates may be about more than productivity. An office also makes hierarchy visible. There are corner offices, conference-room seats, employees walking past, and plenty of reminders about who’s in charge.

That doesn’t mean every CEO demanding office time has an ego problem. In-person work can offer genuine advantages, and many employees prefer a hybrid schedule. But with research showing hybrid work can preserve performance while improving retention, it’s getting harder to assume that filling the office automatically means people are working better.

Sometimes the debate may be about productivity. Sometimes it may also be about power—and whether the person at the top misses being able to see it.

What the New Research Found

The new study has a title with a sting: “Worship me at the office altar: Why narcissistic leaders resist remote work.” The researchers studied Fortune 500 CEOs, managers, and supervisors, then tested how status-focused thinking affected leaders’ views on remote work. Their conclusion was blunt.

Grant wrote that “the only trait that consistently predicted objections to remote work was narcissism,” adding that leaders with higher opinions of themselves coveted more power and status and favored return-to-office mandates.

That does not diagnose any individual Fortune 500 boss. It does point to a pattern. Remote work can flatten status signals. On Zoom, the corner office becomes one square among many. The quick hallway command becomes a scheduled call. The leader who enjoys being seen, deferred to, and surrounded may find remote work less satisfying than a full floor of employees.

The Office Can Be Useful. Office Worship Is Different.

A balanced view starts here: the office has real value. Onboarding, mentoring, creative sprints, client work, labs, factories, hospitals, retail, and early-career networking can all benefit from people sharing space. Gallup has also found that fully remote work is not everyone’s dream; its current tracker shows that most remote-capable employees prefer hybrid, not fully remote, work.

But there is a gap between using the office as a tool and treating it like proof of loyalty. Gallup says six in 10 remote-capable employees want hybrid work, about one-third prefer fully remote work, and fewer than 10% prefer being fully on-site. That means a five-day office mandate is not just a scheduling rule. For many white-collar workers, it is a signal that leadership values visibility more than choice.

The Productivity Data Is More Mixed Than Some CEOs Admit

Many leaders defend office mandates with the language of productivity. The problem is that the research does not give full-time office work a clean victory. A 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis by Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia and Jill Janocha Redmond found a positive relationship between remote-work growth and total factor productivity growth across 61 private-sector industries from 2019 to 2022.

A major 2024 Nature study led by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom went further. The randomized trial studied 1,612 employees at Trip.com and found that hybrid work improved job satisfaction and reduced quit rates by one-third, while performance grades over the next two years did not suffer. Bloom and his coauthors wrote, “We found that hybrid working improved job satisfaction and reduced quit rates by one-third.”

That is the business case many workers wish leaders would read twice. Hybrid work is not a perk floating outside of performance. In some settings, it can be part of performance.

RTO Mandates Can Create Their Own Business Risk

Strict office rules may solve one problem while creating another. Gartner reported in 2024 that one in three executives presented with a return-to-office obligation said they would leave their current employer for that reason. The same survey found 19% of non-executives said they would leave because of an RTO mandate.

Caroline Ogawa, a director in Gartner’s HR practice, put the tension plainly: “While 58% of executives with a mandate to return to the office said their organization provided a convincing reason for the decision, many senior leaders are unwilling to come back into the office.” That quote lands because executives are often the people asked to enforce policies they may not want for themselves.

There is also evidence that mandates can weaken morale without boosting the firm. A study by Yuye Ding and Mark Ma on S&P 500 companies found that RTO mandates were associated with lower employee job satisfaction, with no clear improvement in firm performance or value. The authors said their findings were consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees.

CEO Personality Makes the Debate More Complicated

Top executives are not random samples of the workforce. Hogan Assessments reported in 2025 that U.S. executives score high on the “Moving Against” cluster: Bold, Mischievous, Colorful, and Imaginative. Hogan says those traits can make leaders look confident, creative, and leaderlike. Under stress, the same traits can become entitled, risky, domineering, and overwhelming.

That does not make ambition bad. Companies need decisive leaders. A cautious CEO may struggle in a crisis. But the same confidence that helps a leader make hard calls can also make that leader too certain that personal preference equals business strategy. The danger is not confidence. The danger is confidence that refuses to be audited by evidence.

Workers Hear More Than “Come Collaborate”

Leaders often say RTO is about culture, mentorship, and innovation. Workers often hear something else: we trust the badge swipe more than the output. Gallup’s data shows remote-capable work has settled into a stable pattern, with hybrid as the dominant model. BLS research shows remote work has not damaged productivity in the broad way critics feared. Nature’s trial shows a hybrid can cut down on fuel without hurting performance.

That does not mean workers should never come in. It means leaders need sharper reasons than “culture.” Which tasks need the office? Which teams need overlap? Which employees are at risk of leaving? Which outcomes will be measured after the policy changes? If the answer is mostly “because the CEO wants it,” that is not a strategy. That is a preference for wearing a suit.

The Smart Future Is Designed, Not Ordered

The better business answer is not a remote free-for-all. It is designed for flexibility. Gallup’s work on hybrid teams highlights the value of coordination, clear expectations, and team-level decision-making. Stanford’s hybrid research supports a model in which employees work from home part of the week and gather in person for tasks that require the space.

That is where boards and HR teams should focus. They should ask whether a mandate is tied to performance data, customer needs, training gaps, compliance requirements, or measurable collaboration issues. They should also ask who pays the price: caregivers, workers with long commutes, people with disabilities, high performers with options, or senior leaders tired of being told where trust begins.

The office is not the villain. The lazy mandate is. Badge scanners can count bodies. They cannot measure focus, trust, loyalty, or the quiet cost of forcing people back just so power has room to stand.

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