Making time to be known
Making room for connection while respecting the concentration, travel and energy that time together can cost.
Leading People · Humanity of Management · Trust
Making time to be known: office days and leadership
YouTubeThis article is inspired by real workplace and leadership experiences. I do not use real names, company names or identifying details. Roles, teams, organisational structures, projects and business context may be removed, generalised or combined to protect the people and organisations involved while preserving the underlying leadership reflection. Where conversations are referenced, wording may be edited for clarity and anonymity.
I was talking with someone about coming into the office when they asked whether, underneath my occasional encouragement, there was an expectation they should be doing it more often. Were they supposed to be setting an example? Would I see them differently if they continued working mostly from home?
It was a reasonable question, particularly because my own attendance is inconsistent. I sometimes make the effort to go in, and sometimes a stretch passes without it. I would find it difficult to turn office attendance into a measure of leadership while being fairly selective about it myself.
I also like working from home. I am naturally introverted, and constant interaction takes energy. At home, I can finish a conversation, take a few minutes to decompress and return to the next thing. After a full day around people, I often want very little coming at me by the time I get back.
Yet I was still making a case for spending time together. There are small moments I value: a coffee, a question someone asks because I happen to be nearby, a conversation with someone I would otherwise have little reason to meet. I have received feedback that seeing me interact more casually makes me feel more approachable. People get a sense of how I work before they need something from me.
I could hear how easily that argument might sound like nostalgia for the office. But there was something in it I did not want to dismiss simply because I also value the freedom to stay home.
The response was honest. The office could be distracting. There was work to finish, and spontaneous conversations interrupted the concentration needed to do it. Travelling added pressure to a day that already had enough in it. There was also the fairly obvious frustration of making the journey only to spend most of the day on calls.
I recognised that immediately. I have been the person rushing past someone, apologising because another meeting was starting. I have spent office days tucked away in a booth. Whatever benefit there might have been in being together, I had left very little room for it.
That was where the conversation became more useful. We started talking about what the day was actually for.
I explained that I sometimes protect an afternoon when I go in. After the scheduled meetings, I leave space for people to approach me. A short question does not have to become a half-hour invitation. There is room to have a coffee or follow a conversation a little further than the original reason for starting it.
The other person could see value in that. Their concern had been arriving with a full workload and then experiencing every interruption as something pulling them away from it. Planning the day around being available gave those conversations a place. It did not settle how often to come in, but it made the purpose clearer.
In explaining my approach, I said that I went in expecting not to get anything done. Looking at that sentence now, I think it deserves some attention. I was describing time I deliberately protect because I believe it matters, then using language that makes it sound unproductive.
There is still a cost. The work requiring concentration has to happen somewhere, and I protect other time for that. But I cannot keep saying relationships are part of leadership while treating the time they take as something squeezed around the real job.
This connects to something I have written about before: I want there to be room to enjoy work and the people I work with. Some of the strongest working relationships allow a conversation to move naturally between a difficult issue and something completely ordinary. We can disagree, work through the problem and still enjoy speaking to each other afterwards.
A weekly one-to-one can absolutely support that. I would not assume that a scheduled conversation is superficial, or that a coffee reveals a more authentic person. Some people find a protected, private conversation much easier than an informal encounter in a busy room.
Still, I wonder what happens when the relationship exists almost entirely inside that one appointment. There is progress to discuss, feedback to give, a decision to make and perhaps something difficult that has been waiting all week. We may spend an hour together without much room to discover anything beyond what needs dealing with.
Knowing someone appropriately does not require knowing everything about their life. I am interested in what they enjoy about their work, what frustrates them, what they are curious about and how they prefer to be supported. There should also be room for a conversation that simply happens because we enjoy talking.
That is part of what I mean by gezelligheid. I do not think every pleasant moment needs a business case attached to it. Equally, I would be uncomfortable turning sociability into another expectation people have to satisfy. Enjoying work should leave room for different personalities and for a life outside it.
The conversation challenged me on that point too. The person I was speaking with felt connected to their team already. They described strong relationships built remotely and a working environment that allowed them to be effective. I could not reasonably treat those relationships as incomplete because some of the moments I value happen in person.
I made it clear that attendance did not change my assessment of their impact. That matters beyond the reassurance itself. If I say location is flexible, but give more attention or recognition to the people I happen to see, I make that flexibility harder to trust.
Their opening question was a reminder that my encouragement carries weight. I may think I am casually suggesting lunch. Someone else may be checking whether declining will count against them. I need to be clear about what I am asking and consistent in how I respond.
I still think it is worth making an effort to spend time together. I want people to have opportunities to know me beyond the version of me that appears with an agenda and a decision to make. I also want to understand more about them than I can learn from an update on their work.
What became clearer through the conversation was the responsibility attached to that preference. If I am asking people to make time for one another, I need to make that time possible. I need to respect the concentration, travel and energy it costs. And I need to remain interested in the ways connection already exists, including the ones that look different from my own.
For now, protecting an occasional afternoon feels like a reasonable thing to keep trying. Its value will depend on what people experience when they approach me, and whether there is room for the conversation to be theirs.
Before I encourage the next office day, I want to look at my calendar. If someone makes the effort to come in, will I have time for them?
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