{"id":1637,"date":"2026-09-08T15:59:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/08\/the-autonomy-paradox-how-more-freedom-at-work-can-leave-you-feeling-powerless\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T15:59:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:59:39","slug":"the-autonomy-paradox-how-more-freedom-at-work-can-leave-you-feeling-powerless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/08\/the-autonomy-paradox-how-more-freedom-at-work-can-leave-you-feeling-powerless\/","title":{"rendered":"The autonomy paradox: how more freedom at work can leave you feeling powerless"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span> VH-studio\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You may know the feeling. You\u2019re supposed to have finished work for the day, but later, during your evening meal, you start mentally preparing for tomorrow\u2019s meeting. Or just having a quick check of your emails while you half watch TV. <\/p>\n

You might not mean to, or even want to. It\u2019s just something that you end up doing as part of the price of enjoying some autonomy at work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a while now, research has claimed that professional autonomy was a good thing<\/a>. Being able to decide how, where and when you worked was considered a major plus in terms of motivation, job satisfaction<\/a> and overall health<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And although those benefits still exist, we now know that more autonomy can often also mean more work and less downtime.<\/p>\n

Research shows that workers with a high degree of autonomy struggle to leave work behind<\/a> at the end of the day. When you have control over your job, it can stay on your mind as you run through decisions and ponder unresolved problems. Switching off becomes difficult.<\/p>\n

But the capacity to stop thinking about work during personal time, what\u2019s known as \u201cpsychological detachment\u201d, is a form of emotional and cognitive recovery<\/a>. Without it, resources are never fully replenished. The person who cannot switch off does not just feel tired \u2013 they go back to work the next day already running on empty.<\/p>\n

Autonomy can make this detachment harder precisely because of the sense of ownership it brings<\/a>. Responsibility does not respect working hours, and the person who controls their own job carries it home in a way that the person purely following instructions does not. <\/p>\n

Research my colleague and I conducted with 40 entrepreneurs<\/a> \u2013 people whose working lives are especially autonomous \u2013 reveals another problem arrives when your work and identity<\/a> are entwined. When work becomes bound up in who you are, detachment becomes virtually impossible. <\/p>\n

One woman in her 20s told us that she would regularly lie awake at night, unable to stop thinking about her work. She explained: \u201cI feel the pressure. I am still struggling with [what it means] to be an entrepreneur.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, I feel I am not giving enough to the company. Like [at] 11pm, should I just work an extra hour and a half?\u201d <\/p>\n

She understood that this was unsustainable, but she could not stop. For her, the work and the self had become the same thing \u2013 the result of a working life in which she alone was responsible for every outcome. No changes to her evening routine could help her separate the two.<\/p>\n

Another told us that she felt guilty if she separated her business from the rest of her life. <\/p>\n

Working from everywhere<\/h2>\n

Separate research confirms that workers who have a high degree of autonomy over their schedules and tasks end up working more, not less<\/a>. When people have autonomy, they repay the trust with extra effort<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This is especially the case in situations where autonomy removes visibility, such as when people work from home. <\/p>\n

\n \"Woman
\n More autonomy, less sleep?<\/span>
\n Pixel-Shot\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Being seen less in the workplace can mean having more to prove. In these situations, some workers end up showing their commitment by replying quickly, being online late or taking on extra projects.<\/p>\n

The shift to working from home and the technology which allows it, has brought a big change in what it means to stop working for the day. When work requires being in a specific place, the end of the day has a physical logic to it. You leave that place and the day\u2019s work is done. <\/p>\n

\n

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\n Read more:
\n How AI could make us work even harder<\/a>
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But for many that shift has gone and been replaced with constant availability<\/a>. Being reachable shows commitment. Not being reachable requires explanation and justification.<\/p>\n

And that problem cannot really be solved with legislation. Things like the \u201cright-to-disconnect\u201d<\/a> or flexible working policies tend to address intrusions from outside \u2013 the manager who emails at 9pm, or the meeting which clashes with the school run. <\/p>\n

Laws can do nothing about the work pressures inside employees\u2019 own minds. Because in many cases, organisations have not simply given workers more freedom, they have also given the job of managing that work onto the worker themselves.<\/p>\n

While autonomy is still worth having, it often comes at a personal cost. It can mean less power and more work \u2013 which is unacknowledged and unpaid.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Andreana Drencheva received funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust to support some of the research cited in this article.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VH-studio\/Shutterstock You may know the feeling. You\u2019re supposed to have finished work for the day, but later, during your evening meal, you start mentally preparing for tomorrow\u2019s meeting. Or just having a quick check of your emails while you half watch TV. You might not mean to, or even want to. It\u2019s just something that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}