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If you're a good developer, you choose where and with whom to work. Feel your power and use your power.
Really good developer does not need others to acknowledge their worthiness or change what others should do or think.
What you do is look for another job and resign when you've found it.
This is win-win for both of you: you can find something suitable for your lifestyle, and they can find somebody willing to play by their rules at whatever level of the market that is.
It's not always better to have "great" engineers - often companies just want somebody sitting at their desk ready to act on instructions. If that's the case then there is probably a lower-skilled engineer that would count themselves lucky to be sitting at a desk for 8 hours. He will be a lot easier to manage and probably a lot more appropriate for the new management.
Even when done with the best of intentions, second-guessing what upper management needs to do for a company to be its best is a gigantic waste of time and potential. Trust me, I've been there.
You demonstrate your value. They either respond in kind, or it's time to leave.
Not to omit all communication nor seeking some understanding. But this tends to be supplemental to the whole "actions" thing -- clarifying, perhaps, in some cases. I've rarely observed it to play a primary role in fixing a situation.
The new manager has no experience managing developers, and the old manager has moved into a development role to fill in gaps left by senior developers leaving the company and being unable to find replacements.
They have already failed. This is not your problem.
If demands by an employer change or are no longer acceptable, find a new job and move on. If you are confident in your marketability, outright state your demands about flexible work et al, knowing that this may cause conflict and a departure may be expedited. None of us are fixed in our jobs.
One thing worth mentioning is that developers, as in other high variance skill pursuits (such as sports), have individual allowances and leeways. There is nothing "unfair" about a star performer essentially writing their own rules, and it is one of the great sadnesses of this profession that there are so many lobsters desperately trying to claw their peers down to the bottom of the pot.
How do you tell good developers that they will always have a manager whether it be a "manager" or a "client" or the demands of the problem they are trying to solve?
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Edit: I find it also frustrating, as I suspect that a lot of the bluster is from armchair cowboys, and in no way reflective of what those commenters would actually do in the given situation.
I think explaining that "Most senors developers can leave and get another job with a 30-40% higher pay" and that "most current developers stay because of the flexible time and casual environment" is a very strong point. I would try to understand a bit more the concern about the forced 8 hours a day at the office. But obviously, if the manager is just dumb, just go to higher authority and explain that this manager cou…
One of the worst things a developer can do is to underperform on purpose because of thoughts like the above ("I could get a better job elsewhere, so I don't need to put in any effort here"). It leads to the worst possible outcome for everyone: low pay, bad performance, dissatisfaction on both sides. If you think you deserve better pay, ask for it or go find it elsewhere. If you don't, you were just looking for excuses to slack off.