3 Mindset Shifts to Help Teams Thrive
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” – Ernest Hemingway
The old playbook of hours, presence and control no longer fits the way we work today. In this article, we share three practical shifts that help leaders unlock productivity, accountability and culture in the remote-working world – all through a trust-first approach.
For decades, leaders held onto the belief that performance = presence. That shaped everything: attendance, long hours, even the pressure to look busy. But being visible isn’t the same as producing results. Remote work makes that clearer than ever.
The data tells the story:
Today’s most effective leaders focus on what gets achieved, not who’s being seen. Accountability thrives in clarity, not surveillance. According to MIT Sloan’s Tsedal Neeley and Harvard Business Review research, high-performing remote teams set clear goals, make progress transparent, and hold short, purposeful check-ins.⁵ ⁶
Open Water’s Connected Mid-Level Leader™ Program helps leaders build these capabilities, equipping them with practical tools to drive accountability, connect individual growth to strategic goals, and empower their teams to deliver their best.
When we measure by results, we unlock our team’s full potential and celebrate the true impact of their work.
People don’t do their best work under constant supervision. They thrive when three core needs are met: autonomy, competence and connection.⁷ Leaders can support these by:
“When people know they’re trusted, they spend less energy proving themselves and more energy doing their best work.”⁸ ¹¹ – Adam Grant, WorkLife Podcast
Accountability comes from ownership, not supervision. Trust is not just a soft skill, it’s a strategic asset that drives performance, innovation and resilience.
Extending trust inspires commitment, sparks initiative, and helps the team deliver its best.
There’s a myth that culture only lives in offices. In reality, culture is built through shared meaning, identity, purpose and everyday rituals that bind people together.
Simple, intentional connection moments include:
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace shows that recognition, especially when it’s public and tied to purpose, is one of the strongest drivers of engagement, wherever people are working. When contributions are seen and linked to a bigger picture, people feel part of something that matters.
“Belonging doesn’t require a building. It requires intention.”
At Open Water, our Culture Transformation Formula, DANCE™, helps leaders, teams, and organisations build intentional culture that enables them to innovate, advance and thrive.
Intentional culture creates belonging, connection and purpose, enabling teams to thrive wherever they work.
Remote and hybrid work bring real challenges: blurred boundaries, moments of isolation, and in hybrid settings, the risk of proximity bias (favouring people you see more often over those working remotely). These do not determine outcomes. Leadership choices do. With clear norms, intentional check-ins and team agreements, risks become opportunities to create healthier, more sustainable ways of working than the old office default ever allowed.
The model of measuring hours, monitoring presence and equating control with results belongs to another era. The model that works now is built on trust, clarity and accountability.
By shifting the focus to results instead of visibility, building trust and autonomy in place of control, and creating a culture with intention, leaders move beyond keeping teams operational. They enable teams to thrive.
At Open Water, we work with organisations to make this shift tangible: equipping managers, embedding culture by design and aligning leadership behaviours with business outcomes, so people and performance grow together.¹⁰
Viola Schatzschneider – Client Solutions Consultant
Viola combines behavioural science expertise with consulting experience in people and change to help leaders and teams enhance performance, foster resilience and navigate change effectively. Fluent in English, German and French, she brings valuable cross-cultural insights to her work. A certified mindfulness teacher, Viola integrates mindfulness, emotional intelligence and psychological safety into her research and practice, helping create high-performing, engaged and connected teams.
¹ Gallup. (2025, May 7). The Remote Work Paradox: Higher Engagement, Lower Wellbeing.
² Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J., & Ying, Z. J. (2015). Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(1), 165–218.
³ Choudhury, P., Foroughi, C., & Larson, B. Z. (2021). Work-from-anywhere: The productivity effects of geographic flexibility. Strategic Management Journal, 42(4), 655–683.
⁴ Barrero, J. M., Bloom, N., & Davis, S. J. (2023). The Time Savings When Working From Home. NBER Working Paper No. 30866.
⁵ Neeley, T. (2021). Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere. Harper Business / MIT Sloan.
⁶ Sull, D., Sull, C., & Bersin, J. (2020). Five ways leaders can support remote work. Harvard Business Review.
⁷ Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and wellbeing. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.
⁸ Grant, A. (Host). (2020, May 13). How Science Can Fix Remote Work [Audio podcast episode]. In WorkLife with Adam Grant. TED Audio Collective.
⁹ Gallup. (2023). State of the Global Workplace 2023 Report.
¹⁰ Open Water. Connected Mid-Level Leader™ Program and leadership/culture solutions at open-water.com.
Specialists in the human side of change, we partner with leading life science organisations to deliver deep change and cultural transformation.