In a recent article published in Business Week (The Importance of Being There, reg. required), Jack and Suzy Welch write about one aspect of telecommuting that can be very detrimental for the development and success of one’s overall career:

But what you can’t do very well from home is lead. To lead, it’s no good blowing into town for important meetings and showing up at retreats. You have to muddle in the muck in between. People have to see how calm you stay in a PR crisis, how decent you are to new employees who don’t have the hang of things, how much you sweat during a tough deal, and how hard you work on a deadline without bitching and moaning. Or how you don’t do any or all of the above.

Which brings us back to face time. Companies rarely promote people into leadership roles who haven’t been consistently seen and measured. It’s a familiarity thing, and it’s a trust thing. We’re not saying that the people who get promoted are stars during every “crucible” moment at the office, but at least they’re present and accounted for. And their presence says: Work is my top priority. I’m committed to this company. I want to lead. And I can.

As they correctly point out, nowadays one can accomplish nearly every task related to one’s job (especially when closer to entry-level and farther away from management) away from the office. In some ways, one can even work better away from the hustle and bustle. But if you are interested in becoming a “leader” (as Welch was at GE), you will never be able to succeed if you are not there every day, being active and in-person.

Obviously, if management is your number-one career goal, then telecommuting can only be a short-term solution for you. However, for many types of jobs (especially those that are very techno-centered) and for people who are happy with what they are doing and do not have ambitions of leadership and management, telecommuting may very well turn out to be a much longer-term solution than described by the Welch’s in their article (Robert Mitchell makes a similar point in his blog post on the subject).

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 by Yaakov Ellis and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: face time, jack welch, leadership, office
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