Leading from Anywhere

How can you lead people you may never meet in person—and truly bring out their best work? In Leading from Anywhere, management thinker David Burkus argues that remote and hybrid teams aren’t just the future of work—they’re the present. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated what technology and flexibility had already set in motion: work that’s no longer confined to offices, long commutes, or cubicles. But Burkus contends that remote success depends on a very different kind of leadership. It’s not about surveillance or micromanagement—it’s about trust, autonomy, connection, and clarity.

Through vivid stories—from a Belgian bureaucrat who reinvented a failing department to experiments at Google and virtual companies like Buffer and Automattic—Burkus identifies the core practices that make remote teams thrive. He grounds his framework in solid research: social science, neuroscience, and organizational behavior studies that show why some teams flourish while others fade. What emerges is a powerful blueprint for leading effectively from anywhere—and helping others do the same.

The Shift to a Remote World

Long before COVID-19, thought leaders like Charles Handy and Peter Drucker predicted that technology would make the office obsolete. Yet it took a global crisis to prove them right. Companies that had resisted remote work for years suddenly discovered its benefits: happier employees, higher productivity, and lower turnover. But as Burkus notes, remote leadership is far from effortless. It demands intentional systems—clear communication, psychological safety, structures of accountability, and new ways to keep people engaged without burning them out.

The book’s opening story—Curtis Christopherson of Innovative Fitness—illustrates this perfectly. When the pandemic shut down his training studios, Christopherson transformed his business in two weeks, retraining 200 personal trainers to work with clients online. The pivot was risky, but it created new opportunities and new roles. Innovative Fitness not only survived—it became stronger, global, and more inclusive. For Burkus, this captures the essence of modern leadership: adaptability rooted in shared purpose.

Culture and Connection Without a Building

One of Burkus’s core insights is that culture doesn’t live in office walls—it lives in behaviors. Using the story of Frank Van Massenhove, head of Belgium’s Ministry of Social Security, he shows how a dying bureaucracy became an admired workplace by focusing on trust and autonomy. Van Massenhove gave employees freedom over where, when, and how they worked. The result? Productivity rose 18% in three years, sick days plummeted, and new applicants flooded in. Not through incentives or surveillance, but through belief in people.

To sustain this kind of environment remotely, Burkus draws on Google’s landmark “Project Aristotle,” which found that high-performing teams share five common traits: dependability, structure, meaning, impact, and psychological safety. The last—feeling safe to express ideas and admit mistakes—is the foundation of all the others. Remote leaders must therefore become experts at building trust and respect in a digital space where empathy can easily get lost in translation.

The Life Cycle of Remote Leadership

Burkus organizes his book around the life cycle of a team: how it forms, grows, performs, and even ends. He walks through ten pivotal aspects of leadership—from setting shared purpose and hiring remotely, to building bonds, managing performance, and eventually saying goodbye. Each chapter pairs stories with practical frameworks: how to replace hallway conversations with structured “digital fika,” how to run energizing virtual meetings, and how to balance engagement with boundaries to prevent burnout.

Throughout, Burkus insists that leaders must model the behavior they want from their people. Send that late-night email, and your team assumes they must work late too. Skip lunch, and burnout spreads. Remote leadership, he argues, is as much about self-management as team management.

Why This Book Matters Now

As offices evolve into optional hubs and remote work becomes permanent for millions, Leading from Anywhere equips managers to handle the new realities of distance. It moves beyond the “how” of remote tools to explore the why—why psychological safety beats constant oversight, why asynchronous communication is more productive than nonstop chat, and why engagement depends less on motivation than on setting clear boundaries. It’s both a cultural manifesto and a practical handbook for leaders who want thriving results without sacrificing human connection.

Core message: Work is no longer somewhere we go—it’s something we do together. Leaders who embrace trust, respect, and clarity will not just survive the remote era—they’ll redefine what great leadership looks like for decades to come.

When you take your team remote, the first instinct might be to scramble for new software or video tools. But Burkus argues that the real challenge isn’t technology—it’s shared understanding, identity, and purpose. Remote teams thrive not because they use Zoom or Slack well, but because they know who they are, how they work together, and why their work matters.

Building Shared Understanding

Shared understanding means everyone knows who does what, who knows what, and how to work with each other. Burkus draws on Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen’s research showing that virtual teams fail when they lack this common knowledge. Team members need clarity about roles, skills, and work habits, especially across time zones or cultures. Even simple rituals help—like giving a “virtual tour” of your workspace or sharing each person’s schedule so overlaps are clear.

Leaders should create space for small talk and self-disclosure. Encouraging personal stories or unstructured conversation builds empathy and context. Burkus suggests letting people display their surroundings or discuss life outside work—because the more your team sees of each other’s world, the fewer misunderstandings arise later.

Creating Shared Identity

Beyond understanding how to work, team members need to feel like they belong. Shared identity forms when people see themselves as part of the same group with shared goals. But remote work can fragment this sense of “us,” especially if some members meet in person while others join virtually. To fix this, Burkus recommends finding or defining a superordinate goal—a mission so important it unites everyone. He cites research showing that intergroup conflicts dissolve when people chase the same higher-level challenge.

For example, Innovative Fitness rallied around its fight to survive the lockdown, turning crisis into unity. When teams reaffirm what they’re truly fighting for, divisions dissolve and loyalty grows stronger.

Fostering Shared Purpose

Every great team knows the answer to one powerful question: “What are we fighting for?” Burkus sees this phrase as shorthand for purpose. Whether it’s a revolutionary fight (to change the status quo), an underdog fight (to prove yourself), or an ally fight (to champion your customers’ causes), this narrative gives remote teams emotional energy.

Instead of sterile mission statements buried in corporate handbooks, purpose becomes a living conversation. Sharing wins that connect back to the mission keeps motivation alive across distance and silence. Ultimately, going remote isn’t about where work happens—it’s about restoring meaning to why it happens at all.

Culture, Burkus reminds us, is not ping-pong tables or free snacks—it’s how people treat each other when no one’s watching. For remote teams, the leader shapes this culture daily through trust and respect. He tells the transformative story of Frank Van Massenhove, who turned a failing Belgian ministry into an admired remote workplace by giving employees full autonomy. In just a few years, productivity soared while burnout and absenteeism plummeted.

Psychological Safety: The Foundation of Culture

Drawing from Google’s Project Aristotle, Burkus highlights five key cultural elements of high-performing teams—dependability, structure, meaning, impact, and especially psychological safety. Amy Edmondson’s research showed that teams thrive when people can safely admit mistakes and share crazy ideas. On unhealthy teams, fear of judgment leads to silence and lost learning. Remote leaders, therefore, must cultivate spaces where vulnerability is valued, not punished.

Trust as a Reciprocal Process

Trust isn’t a feeling—it’s a behavior reinforced biologically. Citing neuroscientist Paul Zak’s experiments on oxytocin, Burkus shows that trust increases when people are trusted first. Leaders should model transparency and vulnerability: admit mistakes, share personal anxieties, and delegate without micromanaging. Each act of faith sparks reciprocity—team members begin to extend the same trust to others. Over time, this cycle becomes the emotional glue of a remote culture.

Respect as Contagion

Respect reinforces trust. Referencing Christine Porath’s studies on workplace civility, Burkus notes that over half of employees report not feeling respected by their leaders—and that disrespect spreads like a virus. Conversely, modeling attentive listening, curiosity, and grace generates a positive contagion. Even small gestures—acknowledging ideas, waiting before interrupting, or asking clarifying questions—signal dignity and recognition. Respect often costs nothing but changes everything.

A respectful, high-trust environment is not a “nice-to-have.” It’s the competitive advantage that fuels engagement and innovation on remote teams.

In the remote era, hiring isn’t about credentials—it’s about communication, collaboration, and self-motivation. Burkus explores how companies like Automattic, maker of WordPress, revolutionized recruiting by replacing interviews with real-world tryouts. Instead of guessing fit, candidates work on real projects alongside future teammates and are paid for their time. This method, founder Matt Mullenweg found, reduced hiring mismatches from 30% to just 2%.

Collaborators Over Stars

Drawing on Harvard professor Boris Groysberg’s findings that star performers often fail when separated from their teams, Burkus argues that team fit matters more than individual brilliance. Great collaborators amplify others; lone geniuses often underperform remotely. Interview questions about ideal team norms and past group experiences reveal much about a person’s interpersonal habits. The goal is alignment—not assimilation.

Communicators Who Listen

In remote work, communication is the work. Research by Christoph Riedl and Anita Williams Woolley showed that “bursty” communication—short, focused bursts followed by quiet periods for deep work—produces the best results. That means your hires need to be articulate in written form and disciplined about response rhythms. Cover letters and trial task updates become more telling than resumes.

Self-Motivation and Discipline

Finally, candidates must show they can motivate themselves without direct supervision. Burkus references Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom’s call-center study showing remote productivity improves only among workers who truly want the flexibility. Ask prospective hires how they structure their day or handle distractions. Look for hobbies or side projects that demonstrate initiative. The best remote teammates don’t need constant direction—they need meaningful goals.

In the end, great remote hiring is about finding adults who can be trusted to act like adults. And when your onboarding emphasizes connection over documentation, you transform new hires into integrated teammates faster, no office required.

The lifeblood of any remote team is communication—but too much of it kills productivity. Burkus praises Basecamp, one of the most successful remote-first companies, for flipping the old paradigm: “Asynchronous is the rule, synchronous is the exception.” Instead of endless Zoom calls and pinging chat messages, Basecamp prioritizes thoughtful written updates and clear documentation. This approach turns scattered chatter into structured collaboration.

Asynchronous Communication

Email, message boards, or project tools are not meant for instant replies. Burkus cites UC Irvine’s Gloria Mark, whose research found that constant email interruptions elevate stress and lower focus. To counter this, he urges leaders to set norms: responses within 24 hours are fine; instant replies are optional. Clarity of writing becomes crucial. Well-written summaries, clear subject lines, and warm tone prevent misunderstandings and unnecessary meetings.

Synchronous Communication

For urgent issues or nuanced topics, pick up the phone. Counterintuitively, Burkus explains that voice-only conversations often improve emotional accuracy over video calls. Drawing on researcher Michael Kraus’s work, he notes that without facial distractions, we listen better and empathize more deeply. Use video sparingly—for large groups or when facial cues truly matter—and always check lighting, camera placement, and eye contact to build connection when you do.

Virtual Water Coolers

Remote workers miss casual conversation, so create deliberate “digital fikas”—spaces for nonwork banter. These informal channels, when optional and positive, boost morale and creativity. Studies even show that small talk correlates with daily wellbeing at work (see: Jessica Methot’s research on office chit-chat). The goal isn’t more noise but connected silence punctuated by meaningful dialogue.

Communication is oxygen for virtual teams—but like oxygen, too much can suffocate. Balance thoughtful pauses with purposeful conversations, and your team’s clarity will soar.

Most people groan at the phrase “virtual meeting,” but Burkus shows that when run well, online gatherings can energize rather than exhaust. Using Stephen Wolfram’s company as a case study, he explores how a fully remote, 800-person tech firm runs productive livestreamed design meetings—sometimes even crowdsourced to viewers on Twitch. The key is structure, purpose, and presence.

Eight Steps for Effective Meetings

Burkus’s eight-step framework reads like an antidote to “this could’ve been an email.” Plan with a clear purpose; invite only essential people; turn agenda items into questions; start early for casual talk; assign a note-taker; stick to time; review action items; and leave the line open afterward for informal chat. This structure resurrects the missing social energy of office life without wasting collective time.

Managing Time and Energy

He argues for fairness across time zones—sharing the burden of awkward hours—and consistency in format. If one person dials in virtually, everyone should, so power doesn’t tilt to those in the room. Shorter meetings with breaks reduce “Zoom fatigue,” which Stanford’s Jeremy Bailenson traced to our brain’s panic response to faces appearing too close or too numerous. Minimize slide decks and maximize voices.

The Emotional Element

Start on a positive note. Emotions are contagious even online; leaders who open with optimism and personal energy set the tone for engagement. Use people’s names frequently, encourage cameras for connection, and rotate speaking turns so all voices are heard. In virtual space, attention is leadership’s greatest currency.

Meetings don’t have to drain your team. With intention and empathy, they can become mini culture-building sessions that remind people why this mission—and this team—matter.

Remote leadership, Burkus insists, is not about checking up on people—it’s about setting them free with clarity. He showcases how Chris Taylor at Actionable.co manages a 40-person distributed company using a “work out loud” philosophy. Teams operate in six-week sprints, post weekly updates, and hold frequent coaching sessions—not performance reviews—to discuss learning and progress. The outcome? More innovation, less fear.

Autonomous, Not Abandoned

Drawing from Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s self-determination theory, Burkus explains that autonomy is the strongest driver of intrinsic motivation. Micromanagement kills creativity. Surveillance software, while tempting to insecure managers, backfires by breeding distrust and turnover. Instead of tracking keystrokes, leaders should co-create goals and measure output, not activity.

Set Objectives and Track Progress

Mutually defined objectives—with clear intent and short time frames—keep people focused and accountable. Teresa Amabile’s “progress principle” shows that seeing forward motion, however small, fuels engagement and joy. Regular check-ins translate this psychological insight into daily practice. The best leaders use one-on-ones to remove obstacles, not to demand updates.

Feedback That Fuels Growth

When problems arise, distinguish between a people issue and a process issue (as Trivinia Barber of Priority VA advises). Discuss specific behaviors and their impact instead of attacking personalities. Ask questions; invite ownership. Regular feedback, both positive and constructive, nurtures a growth culture where learning never stops. In remote work, every conversation is a chance to strengthen connection.

One myth Burkus debunks is that remote workers are less engaged. In reality, they often care too much. His case study of Mike Desjardins, founder of ViRTUS, exposes the hidden enemy: overwork. When his firm went fully remote, employees blurred the lines between home and office, answering emails into the night until collective burnout struck. The fix was radical—explicitly unavailability policies and boundary-setting rituals.

Boundaries Build Engagement

Setting working hours protects focus and rest. Leaders must model healthy behavior: no late-night messages, no “just quick” weekend requests. Cal Newport’s ritual—ending each day with “Shutdown complete”—illustrates how rhythms and closure restore mental space. Small actions, like switching devices or stepping outdoors, signal that the workday is truly over.

Discipline Over Freedom

Anthropologist Dave Cook’s study of digital nomads revealed the “freedom trap”: when you can work anywhere, you end up working everywhere. Effective remote workers cultivate routines, designate zones, and batch tasks. Burkus suggests creating people boundaries too—train family and friends to treat work hours as sacred. Sometimes the most engaged habit is the discipline to log off.

Ultimately, engagement isn’t about making employees work harder—it’s about helping them work healthier. Sustainable focus, he argues, beats frantic hustle every time.

Even virtual teams must part ways eventually. Burkus encourages leaders to treat departures as graduations, not betrayals. He shares Laura Gassner Otting’s story: after a decade leading her remote-friendly executive search firm, she planned her exit for five years, focusing not on her own farewell but on her team’s growth. The quietest goodbye—when everyone carries on seamlessly—is often the best measure of leadership success.

Celebrating Departures

Just as in hiring, humanity matters most at the end. Instead of abrupt lockouts, Burkus advises expressing gratitude, letting the departing teammate guide how to announce the news, and focusing on legacy rather than loss. Treat each exit as a moment for appreciation and storytelling—it reassures remaining teammates that their loyalty is valued, even when life moves on.

Leader Transitions

When a leader leaves, clarity is everything: inform management early, share the transition plan, and spotlight successors. “Make it about their promotions, not your departure,” Gassner Otting told Burkus. Leaders who leave gracefully don’t vanish—they elevate others as they exit. In remote teams where trust defines culture, how you say goodbye communicates who you truly are.