When freedom fades - the hidden cost of lost autonomy at work
(Inspired by Mujcic & Oswald, PNAS 2025 — Read the full study here)
Have you ever noticed how freedom at work changes with time?
When we start out, we crave autonomy and usually fight to earn it. By mid-
career, many leaders find themselves trusted, empowered, and at the centre of
decisions. But then, somewhere along the way, that freedom quietly shrinks.
Meetings multiply. Control tightens. And even senior professionals begin to feel
constrained.
It’s not just a feeling. It’s a measurable phenomenon.
According to new research by Redzo Mujcic and Andrew Oswald (Warwick
Business School, PNAS, 2025), workplace autonomy follows a surprising pattern:
it grows through early and mid-career, peaks around age 40, and then declines
steadily through the remaining working years.
Across more than 400,000 employees in Australia, Germany, and the UK, the
data tell the same story. Even as competence, wisdom, and experience increase,
the sense of control, choice, and trust in one’s role often collapses.
That finding made me stop. Because autonomy isn’t just a psychological need,
it’s a performance variable, one that directly impacts employee engagement,
innovation, and wellbeing.
The Hidden Cost of Control
When autonomy fades, we see predictable ripples:
- Creativity shrinks
- Engagement drops
- Turnover intentions rise
- Burnout risk multiplies
It’s the invisible tax on your culture. And most organisations don’t even know it’s
happening, because autonomy rarely makes it into the boardroom dashboard.
At the Business Health Institute, this is exactly what our Organisational
Human Factor Benchmark™ (OHFB) was designed to change.
The OHFB brings the human pulse of the workplace into measurable form,
transforming what used to be “soft” data into strategic intelligence that
leaders can act on.
What the Data Could Be Telling You
If Mujcic and Oswald’s autonomy curve applies in your organisation, it raises
powerful questions:
- Are mid- and late-career professionals being unintentionally over-managed?
- Has trust been replaced by compliance?
- Are your systems designed for control rather than creativity?
The OHFB allows you to test those questions with evidence, not guesswork.
Through our workplace analytics, you can:
- Bring the People Pulse to the Boardroom – Integrate autonomy and engagement into your balanced scorecard.
- Determine the Feasibility of Business Strategy – Are your people empowered to act on strategic intent, or are they blocked by structure?
- Understand Setting Differences – Autonomy looks very different in onsite, hybrid, and remote contexts. The OHFB reveals where your organisation’s freedom to act is thriving or throttled.
- Manage Outcomes and Costs – Quantify how the loss of autonomy links to disengagement, absenteeism, and turnover, translating your People’sPulse into economic impact.
- Guide Targeted Interventions – Design autonomy-enhancing solutions exactly where they’ll have the greatest ROI.
Reframing Leadership: From Control to Capability
The deeper question is both philosophical and practical.
We’ve built systems that reward control, layers of governance, approvals, and
oversight. But control doesn’t scale creativity. Autonomy does.
When we help leaders measure the People’s Pulse through the OHFB, the shift is
subtle but profound: they start leading for capability, not compliance.
That’s when cultures come alive again.
That’s when innovation returns.
That’s when the organisation’s pulse strengthens.
A Moment for Reflection
If you lead a team or a division, ask yourself:
- Do your most experienced people feel more trusted today than five yearsago, or less?
- When was the last time you asked a senior colleague, “What freedom would help you do your best work?”
- What might happen if you gave that freedom back?
Autonomy is not a perk. It’s oxygen.
And like all vital signs, it changes with age, pressure, and environment.
The leaders who monitor it, and act on it, build organisations that breathe.
At the Business Health Institute, we help leaders measure that pulse.
The Organisational Human Factor Benchmark™ makes the unseen visible,
linking autonomy, capability, well-being, and performance.
You can explore the full research that inspired this piece here:
(2025)
If you’d like to explore how autonomy and other your People’s Pulse are shaping
your organisation’s performance, let’s have a conversation.
Because the heartbeat of your strategy isn’t in the numbers, it’s in your people.
Pulse | The Business Health Institute
Translating human data into strategic advantage