Lonely at the top: why people in leadership have no one to talk to

“I talk to people all day. And in the evening I realise I haven’t really spoken to anyone.”

The sentence is said in passing, almost like a remark about the weather. The person saying it has a diary full of meetings, a phone that never goes quiet and a team waiting for their decisions. There is always someone around. And yet, when you ask who they would tell that they are afraid, that they have made a mistake or that they no longer know why they are doing this at all, they fall silent for a moment. Then they say: “No one, actually.”

People like to smile a little at the phrase “lonely at the top”. It sounds like a complaint from those who already have plenty. But loneliness doesn’t choose by salary or job title. It is the feeling that what you carry inside has nowhere to go — and people in important positions often feel it more strongly than anyone would expect. In this post I will try to explain where it comes from, why it is so hard to notice from the inside and what you can do so that you are not left alone with what you know and feel.

A full room and no one to ask

Loneliness is not the same as being alone. John Cacioppo, who studied loneliness for more than two decades, described it as a painful gap between the relationships you have and the relationships you need. It is not about how many people are around you, but whether any of them truly see you. You will find a short explanation of the concept in the knowledge base under Loneliness.

That is why a person can be lonely in the middle of a crowded boardroom. There are plenty of conversations, but almost all of them have a purpose: to decide, to persuade, to report, to align. Few of them include anyone asking “how are you?” and being ready to hear the real answer. Fewer still are conversations in which you would dare to give that answer.

How many leaders experience this is hard to say precisely, because good research is scarce. A frequently cited survey of chief executives by the consultancy RHR International, which Thomas Saporito wrote about in Harvard Business Review in 2012, found that roughly half of the CEOs experienced loneliness in their role, and most of them believed it hindered their work. This is not a scientific study on a representative sample, and the figure should be read with caution. But it is enough for us to know this: if you feel this way, you are not the exception.

Nor is loneliness just an unpleasant feeling. In 2010 Julianne Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues brought together data from 148 studies in a large meta-analysis and found that a lack of strong relationships is associated with a higher risk of early death — an effect comparable in size to well-known risk factors such as smoking. Relationships are not a luxury you allow yourself once the work is done. They are part of what keeps you upright.

Four things that set you apart at the top

The stories of people who lead are often strikingly similar, even though they come from very different settings — companies, public institutions, hospitals, schools. Loneliness doesn’t arrive all at once. It builds up in layers.

The first layer is decisions. As you move up, former colleagues become people you make decisions about — their pay, their tasks, sometimes whether they stay. Friendship with someone whose appraisal you will sign tomorrow is not impossible, but it is complicated. Many people therefore carefully reduce closeness, even though they regret it.

The second layer is information. I will say more about it in the next section, because it may be the most insidious.

The third layer is discretion. You know about the planned reorganisation, the funding difficulties, the staffing decision that isn’t public yet. You may not tell your team, often not even your partner. But secrets are heavy. Research by Michael Slepian shows that secrets weigh on us not mainly in the moments when we have to hide them, but when our thoughts keep drifting back to them on their own — in the evening, while driving, at three in the morning.

The fourth layer is the role. A leader is expected to be calm when others are frightened and certain when others doubt. That is part of the job, and many people do it well. The trouble starts when the role doesn’t stay at work — when you can no longer take it off at home, among friends and, in the end, when you are alone with yourself.

When no one tells you the truth

As far back as 1970, the psychologists Sidney Rosen and Abraham Tesser described a phenomenon they called the MUM effect — keeping mum. People are reluctant to pass on bad news, especially to someone they depend on. Not because they are dishonest, but because it is unpleasant to be the messenger. So they soften the news, delay it or leave it to someone else.

In a leadership position this effect multiplies. Each layer of the organisation softens the message a little. By the time it reaches you, a “serious problem” has become “a challenge we are managing”. Praise, meanwhile, arrives quickly and undistorted. Over time you can end up living in a version of the world that is slightly nicer than the real one — without even knowing it.

This isn’t only a business problem. It is an emotional one too. When you don’t know whether people are telling you the truth, it is hard to trust them. When it is hard to trust them, it is hard to open up to them. And when you open up to no one, you are left alone with what is most real in you. The circle closes: others are careful with you, and you are careful with them.

Something else often wakes up alongside this. People in positions of responsibility often describe a feeling that they are there by mistake and that someone will find out any minute. I wrote about this in Impostor syndrome: why successful people doubt themselves. That feeling deepens the loneliness, because of course you can’t talk about it with the people you lead.

Why it is so hard to confide in anyone

At first glance the solution would seem simple: find someone and tell them. In practice, people at the top get stuck for several reasons at once.

• Fear that what you share will be used. What you tell a colleague could become an argument in a meeting tomorrow. What you tell someone in your industry could reach the competition.
• A sense that you have no right. “I have a good salary, interesting work, a reputation. How can I complain?” That thought silences you faster than any prohibition.
• A habit of self-sufficiency. Many people reached their position precisely because they could solve things on their own. Asking for help feels like admitting that something isn’t working.
• Shame. Not the loud kind, but the quiet sense that others would look at you differently if they knew how you were. More on this in Shame: the emotion that whispers “There is something wrong with me”.

Beneath all this there is often a very old experience. In relational family therapy, in which I am training, we pay a lot of attention to how patterns from childhood live on in adult relationships. Many people who lead others today were already, as children, the ones who had to be good, reliable and not too demanding — because their parents were overstretched, because someone in the family was ill or because they looked after younger siblings. Back then they learned that it was safer to carry their troubles alone. In a position of leadership, that old lesson seems to be proved right once again. I wrote about how early patterns show up at work in Attachment at work: how the pattern shows with your manager and colleagues.

What it sounds like from the inside

Loneliness at the top rarely introduces itself by name. People describe it differently. For example, like this (composed, not a real person):

“How was today?”
“Fine. The meeting with the supervisory board went well.”
“I didn’t ask how the meeting went.”
“…I’m tired. And I think I made the wrong decision three months ago, but I can’t tell anyone, because everyone has already started working on it.”
“Is today the first time you’ve said that?”
“I think today is the first time I’ve admitted it to myself.”

Everything I am talking about is in this short exchange. The first answer is the role’s answer. Only when the question leaves no way out does the person come to the surface — tired, unsure, alone with a decision they can no longer share. And with it the realisation that these thoughts had been circling for a long time, but had never been spoken aloud.

Other signs people often describe: irritability at home, where the tension of the day is finally released on the wrong people. Evenings with the phone or a glass that “just helps me switch off”. A sense that conversations with friends have become superficial, because you no longer know how to explain what you deal with. And a guilty conscience, because you are absent in company even when you are physically there.

Exercise: a map of honest conversations

Before you change anything, it helps to see where you stand. This exercise takes about a quarter of an hour. You need a sheet of paper and a little quiet.

1. List the people. Write down the names of people you spoke to for more than five minutes in the past week — at work, at home, among friends. Don’t select; write them all down.
2. Two columns. Next to each name, answer two questions: “Does this person tell me things I don’t want to hear?” and “Do I tell this person how I really am?” Answer yes, no or sometimes.
3. Look at the pattern. How many names have a “yes” in both columns? For many people the answer is surprisingly small — sometimes none, sometimes a single name that has been the same for years.
4. Choose one. Among the people with at least one “sometimes”, pick one you trust. This week, tell them one true thing about how you are. Not everything, just one. For example: “I’ve been sleeping badly lately because I’m worried about…”
5. Notice. After the conversation, write down what happened. How did they respond? How did you feel — before, during and after? What would you need in order to do it again?

The exercise isn’t a test you can fail. If you find you have no such person, that is valuable information, not a defeat. It means it is time to create that kind of space.

Where you can find a space without the role

There is no single right answer. Different relationships offer different things and have different limits.

A partner is the first port of call for many people, and that is good. But if they are the only one, they may end up carrying too much — your worries, their own worries and worry about you on top. Many couples get into difficulty precisely because one partner becomes the only outlet for everything that happens at work.

Old friends are precious because they knew you before. To them you are not a director but someone they once played basketball or studied with. That relationship is worth the effort, even if it seems they don’t understand what you deal with. They don’t need to understand everything. It is enough that they know you.

Colleagues in similar positions — in other organisations or in peer groups — understand the pressures first-hand. They are often a good place to swap experiences. They are less of a place for vulnerability, because you are always comparing yourself a little.

Coaching and mentoring help with clarity and decisions. I described the difference between coaching and therapy in more detail in What psychotherapy is and what it isn’t.

Psychotherapy, however, offers something other relationships cannot: a relationship in which the other person needs nothing from you except that you come.

Therapy as a space without the role

When people used to leading come to therapy, they often spend the first few sessions talking as if they were reporting to the board. Orderly, concise, with an emphasis on what they have already solved. That is understandable — it is what they are used to. Slowly, though, something changes. They discover that nothing needs to be achieved here. That no one is assessing them, no one is waiting for a decision and no one will use what they said tomorrow.

The therapeutic relationship is unusual in exactly this way. The therapist is not your subordinate, not your superior, not your business partner and not a friend who needs something from you. They are someone who is there for your inner world. The frame — confidentiality, a regular time, clear boundaries — isn’t bureaucracy, but what makes it possible for you to let your guard down. You can read more under The therapeutic frame and in A safe space: why the therapy room differs from every other conversation.

In a space like this it can happen that, for the first time in a long while, you say things you have long carried alone. That you recognise where your need to carry everything yourself comes from. That you learn to bear being seen tired, unsure, sad — and that the other person stays. That experience then slowly carries over into other relationships too. I wrote about why the relationship itself has such power in Why the therapeutic relationship heals: the science of secure connection.

Many people in important positions worry about who will find out that they are in therapy. It is a serious concern and it deserves a serious answer. I have devoted a separate post to it: Therapy for people in prominent positions: confidentiality when people know who you are.

Where this doesn’t hold

It wouldn’t be fair to write this whole post as if loneliness were an inevitable consequence of leading. It isn’t.

Research here is more reserved than headlines in business magazines would suggest. In 2012 Sarah Wright compared workplace loneliness among managers and other employees and did not find that managers were, in general, lonelier than others. Hakan Ozcelik and Sigal Barsade showed that loneliness at work affects how people perform and how their colleagues see them — lonely employees came across to others as less approachable, which only deepened the loneliness. So loneliness doesn’t automatically come with the top job. It depends more on how you lead, what culture you have around you and what relationships you have built outside work.

It is also important to tell things apart: sometimes what looks like loneliness isn’t really a consequence of the position. If you are withdrawing from everyone, including people who were close to you, if nothing brings you joy any more, if you sleep badly and it all feels pointless, this may be a sign of depression or burnout — more on the latter in Burnout is not laziness. In that case the first step is a conversation with your GP, who can assess whether you also need the help of a psychiatrist. Therapy can be part of the path, but it is no substitute for a medical assessment.

And if your thoughts ever drift towards the idea that it would be better if you weren’t here, don’t wait. In Slovenia, call the crisis line Klic v duševni stiski on 01 520 99 00 (every day from 7 pm to 7 am) or the Samarijan helpline on 116 123 (24 hours a day). In an emergency, call 112.

Nor does the answer have to be therapy. For one person it is rebuilding old friendships. For another, joining a group of people with a similar experience. For a third, building a culture with their team in which it is easier to deliver bad news. Therapy is one of the spaces, not the only one.

What you can do this week

You don’t have to change everything at once. A few small steps I suggest to people who recognise themselves in this post:

• Ask for bad news. Tell your team explicitly that you want to hear it early. When someone actually does it, thank them — even if the news isn’t pleasant. That way you reduce the silence around you.
• Protect one relationship. Choose one relationship outside work that you will guard like an important meeting. A regular dinner with a friend, a walk with your partner without your phone.
• Separate the role from yourself. On the way home from work, take five minutes before you go in. Notice where in your body you are carrying the day. Only then open the door.
• Allow yourself vulnerability. Not with everyone and not everywhere. But somewhere, at least. Vulnerability isn’t weakness; it is a condition for contact — more under Vulnerability.

What to remember

• Loneliness is not being alone. You can be surrounded by people and still be lonely if none of them truly sees you.
• At the top the layers build up: decisions about others, filtered information, discretion and a role you can’t take off.
• Research on leaders’ loneliness is scarce and should be read with caution — loneliness isn’t an automatic consequence of the position, but it is common.
• You need at least one space where you can speak without the role. A combination of relationships works best.
• Therapy is a relationship in which the other person needs nothing from you — and that is exactly why you can set down in it what you have been carrying alone.