The Perils of Top-Down Management and RTO Mandates

Chaos at Amazon Shows Disconnect Between Leadership and Reality

My three industrial engineering degrees drove home the perils of top-down management early on. Leading companies for decades reinforced what I learned at Purdue. So, I’m not surprised at the chaos from Amazon’s RTO mandate.

Industrial engineers often have to bridge the gap between the front lines and the back office. In other words, we connect where the work gets done with what executives think is happening. We design processes that align with reality, not wishful thinking. Unfortunately, Amazon’s recent return-to-office (RTO) mandate shows a lot of wishful thinking.

It’s a perfect example of a top-down decision-making process that did not consider the real world. According to The Wall Street Journal, employees returned to a work environment without enough desks. Or even parking.

Think about that. Amazon ordered employees back to the office without verifying whether there was enough space for them to work.

This is what happens when executives make decisions in isolation, disconnected from the realities on the ground. Amazon’s top-down approach rolled out a logistical failure and a motivational disaster.

Pandemic Lessons for the Future of Work

Let’s rewind to 2020. When the world shut down because of COVID-19, companies had no choice but to send team members home.

Without access to office space, workers and teams devised their own solutions for communication. Zoom. Phone calls. Email. Slack. Chat platforms and more abounded. Employees often innovated faster than corporate leadership could keep up.

And guess what? It worked. Companies not only survived but thrived.

Remote and hybrid work models allowed employees to be productive and engaged. More importantly, working from home gave them more control over their work-life balance.

Many employees found that they could focus better without office distractions. Others appreciated the flexibility to structure their day around both professional and personal obligations.

Once working arrangements allowed for a return to the office, some found colocation useful for collaboration. Others relished the long-term freedom of working from anywhere.

Like most things in life, one size did not fit all. The best model was whatever allowed teams to operate most effectively.

Now, here we are in 2025. Employee engagement remains at an all-time low. But instead of building on lessons from the past five years, some companies want to rewind the clock to 2019 with RTO mandates.

But the workplace has changed and so have employees. RTO mandates and executive orders won’t change it back.

The Logistics Nightmare of Top-Down Management RTOs

One of the most baffling aspects of Amazon’s RTO mandate is the sheer lack of planning. Purdue trained us Industrial engineers to analyze processes from the ground up, ensuring that resources match demand. Frontline managers asked to implement an RTO policy would ask simple, practical questions:

• Do we have enough desks for everyone?
• Do we have enough parking spaces?
• Will in-office work actually enhance collaboration? Or will we stick employees in virtual meetings with global teams?

The fact that Amazon employees showed up and found nowhere to sit is a perfect example of top-down management style failures. The leaders who run Amazon’s offices likely knew space would be an issue. But instead of listening to those closest to the problem, Amazon’s leadership imposed a policy that created chaos.

And chaos leads to disengagement. When employees feel that leadership is out of touch, they lose trust. Forced into inefficient or illogical situations, they start looking for the exit.

The Real Cost Comes When Your Best People Leave

Top-down management disasters go beyond logistical missteps. They drain talent.

In Amazon’s case, many employees worked remotely for years before the pandemic. They delivered results without issue. Now, the bosses are forcing them into situations that make their jobs harder, not easier. And some of those employees are simply walking away.

The Wall Street Journal article details the cases of Leala Smith and Jon Conradt, who worked remotely for years.

Smith, a senior technical writer, was given two options: Commute 65 miles each way to Seattle or apply for a medical exemption. She did not want to gamble on whether the suits would approve her exemption. So, she left for a fully remote position at GitLab.

Conradt, an AI scientist, left the company after 12 years. Before, no one worried about attendance at his northern Virginia Amazon office before the pandemic, he told The WSJ. Now, he’s cofounder of an artificial-intelligence startup.

Let that sink in. Amazon lost employees with specialized expertise who performed for years. All because leadership valued control over flexibility.

This return-to-the-office mandate is the exact opposite of insightful leadership.

Your Leadership Style Affects Motivation

For years, I’ve written about the importance of trusting employees. When you give workers the power to choose how they work best, you build a culture of engagement, motivation and innovation. But when you impose rigid mandates that disregard employee needs, you erode trust.

So much top-down management is not about productivity. It’s about control.

As I wrote recently, if you want to focus on results, let managers and teams decide the best way to work. They’d recognize that some roles benefit from in-person collaboration while others function just as well remotely. Blunt-instrument approaches that disregard reality and ignore employee feedback ultimately weaken your workforce.

And the irony in Amazon’s case?

Many of the employees forced back into the office spend their days in virtual meetings with colleagues across the globe. Instead of engaging in rich face-to-face collaboration, they’re just logging into Zoom from an office chair instead of their home desk.

That’s not progress. That’s bureaucracy.

A Smarter Path Forward

So what’s the alternative? It’s simple: trust your people.

1. Instead of mandating a one-size-fits-all policy, empower individual teams to determine what works best for them. Decentralize decision-making.
2. If you’re going to require in-office work, make sure the basics – like desks and parking – are in place first.
3. The goal should be productivity and engagement, not just getting people physically into an office. Outcomes matter. Optics don’t.
4. Recognize that the workplace has changed. Employees now have more options than ever before. If they feel undervalued, they will leave.

Whatever working arrangement you choose, you should ask yourself a simple question: Am I making work better for my employees, or just making it harder?

The best companies don’t use top-down management to force outdated models onto their workforce. They evolve. They adapt. And they listen.

Unless you want to destroy your company’s motivation, your executive teams should do the same.

Related Reading

• The Worker Motivation and Flexible Work Debate, Circa 2025
• Starbucks’ RTO Mandate? Not that Bad …
• The Risks of Rejoicing Over the End of Hybrid Work