The Loneliness Of Leadership
There’s a loneliness in leadership that creeps in quietly. It shows up even when you’re surrounded by people, leading meetings, signing deals, or being praised in the press. It has nothing to do with being alone physically. It’s about not feeling seen for who you are beneath the role, the title, the influence. It’s a lack of connection and we need to connect as humans. We are literally wired for it.
This is the loneliness of leadership.
The higher you rise, the less real connection you often have. People admire you, think they know you, are friendly to you, but very few know how to truly be with you. If you’re not careful, you start to believe that that’s just the way it is as a leader. That isolation is the price of leadership, but that’s not true. What’s really happening is this, you have a persona that you think you should show and this is different from who you really area. Now in my book I say that you should always be 90% yourself and then have a healthy 10% switch. It would be wrong if I was the same with a client as I was with my daughter or friend, but those clients who have got to know me personally would probably tell you that I’m not that different. I am myself. I don’t lead from a role, I lead naturally and easily from who I am. I you are leading form a role, you will be lonely.
I see this constantly in executive therapy and leadership coaching. Childhood roles often write our leadership scripts. Maybe you were the fixer, the overachiever, the one who couldn’t afford to have needs. Now you’re the leader who holds it all, stays strong, carries the weight without complaint. It makes you effective (sometimes), but it also keeps you separate. When your leadership identity is built on never needing anyone, staying separate and not connecting, not ever sharing a laugh or vulnerability then you aren’t ever letting people see the real you. Humans are designed to pick up on this inauthenticity and they don’t buy it. You’ll know people like this and you won’t have them on your friend list.
The truth is that there absolutely are some boundaries that need to be in place in leadership. I don’t cry on my clients and tell them my problems because that would be inappropriate within my role. I do share past issues and how I resolved them because that helps them understand they aren’t alone and see that I can genuinely help. The truth is that leadership doesn’t have to mean emotional exile from others. Real leadership, I’m a human being, leadership, requires emotionally connection, with your team, with your clients and most importantly, with yourself.
The more real you are with you, the more others can find you.
When you lead from loneliness, you over-give to be appreciated. You settle for surface-level respect instead of real support. You keep saying yes when you want to say no, just to keep the illusion of being “the strong one.” Slowly, you disconnect from yourself, so even you can’t tell the difference between persona and you. .
The work in executive therapy or leadership coaching isn’t about fixing you. It’s about helping you clear the things that are hiding you from yourself. Then you can rebuild your leadership identity to include your personality. The moment you stop pretending you don’t need connection is the moment you stop leading alone.