I have the gift and curse of an largeish, internationally distributed organization. There are members of my team in North America and Asia plus one person in Europe. To do my job well, I need to spend a lot of time with people all over the world.

It would be easy for me to schedule meetings based on what works best for me. I’m the boss, so they have to do it. Also, my time is more expensive. While I could do that, and even justify it, it’s the wrong wrong wrong approach. I need to fight the power dynamic. For the people on my team to trust me and believe I have their best interests at heart, I need to show it.

One way to do that is for me to be the one to make sacrifices rather than asking them to sacrifice (where possible). That means I meet my Asia team in my evenings and nights because that’s during their business day. It means going to them physically when there isn’t a global pandemic going on.

I have authority, I have power, and I will use both of them, but I’ll use them only when I need to. To use them to set up meetings when it’s convenient for my life is a waste, and it doesn’t demonstrate the respect and consideration that my team needs from me.