They don't need to explain themselves. Big enough shareholders just can express their needs to the board, a vote can be held and, if the decision is not implemented, courts can get involved.

Courts getting involved over something like that isn't realistic. A more likely outcome is board members getting fired.

No they just have board meetings where they stress the importance of being in the office for "spontaneous exchange of ideas" and "culture" while also floating think pieces in business magazines about how important having people in the office is to success.

"Hey Exec team, my other portfolio investments have real estate exposure so I need you to sacrifice the performance you clearly witness from WFH employees and your own personal bonuses that are tied to that performance for the benefit of my other investments."

I don't buy it.

I would imagine it's more nuanced cues like expressing skepticism at key moments that encourage alternate choices

Companies have investors / shareholders who are also invested in commercial property. They use their power as shareholders to mandate RTO so that their investments won't lose value. It's going from the top.

Investors have invested in companies that just happen to pay rent to the....investor (now landlord)?

If you're someone like BlackStone or Vanguard you absolutely manage investments in companies that are paying each other.

I don't know how it works exactly but I can show you how it works in practice. The CEO somehow managed the middle management that RTO is a good thing. Their reasoning was that the lease was signed for several years ahead, so it's a waste of resources for this space to rest unused. "Can't they "renegotiate?" "No, it's already been signed and the owners won't budge" "Can't we just wait until the lease is over and then downsize?" "Well, you need to understand what happens to us if we downsize the office, use your imagination!"

These people somehow managed to internally identify the company with the office, and reducing the (open plan) office space with downsizing the company. And they were dead serious. No arguments (we did this during the pandemic and our revenue soared, acting against the wishes of all employees means shooting oneself in the foot) would be accepted. So the best engineers left, end of story.

I worked under a C-level person who was otherwise a pretty sensible guy, but he had participated in a workshop about this, in a 1000 person company. After the workshop he instituted a RTO policy. The policy was more lenient than the company policy, but still needlessly strict. In personal discussions he stated that in the workshop they discussed that all people would slack away work given the opportunity. He seemed agitated about it. I guess this was how the C-level was "motivated".

Interesting. Though, to be fair, C-levels are C-levels because they are the best at doing what they're told to do. So I feel like a CEO just has to say, "obviously WFH is bad" and then the sycophants will parrot that as if it was their own idea.

Well, yes. I cannot get into details, but I am pretty confident that the CEO was pressured in a similar fashion as well.