Leadership can be lonely.
Thoughts on how to support ourselves
Does being a leader feel lonely? In my experience, leadership should feel a little lonely sometimes. Not overwhelmingly so and not constantly, but it can feel lonely when you are making some hard (and good) choices about how to conduct yourself as a leader.
Perhaps you are being mindful of not complaining or venting to your team members - with good reason since as leaders we get to provide clarity, motivation, and support to those we lead, rather than burdening them with our ‘stuff’.
Maybe you are also trying to be thoughtful about communicating upwards - our leader or manager is there to support us, but they are likely eager to experience our confidence, our resilience, and our ability to bring problems with solutions and ideas.
Similarly, our peer leaders are often navigating the same challenges and overload that we are, so finding time and space to process with them, if we feel safe doing so, can be hard as well.
So yes, leadership can feel lonely when we find ourselves soaking up stresses, complaints, and issues without a professional or healthy outlet at work through which to process all of it. How can we as leaders support ourselves in moving through some of the tough parts when it feels lonely?
Here are a few ideas and questions to support your exploration of this topic:
1. Written Reflection - A big part of leadership feeling lonely is about how we are relating to others - another, often overlooked piece is how we are relating to ourselves. Written reflection - including practices like journaling and morning pages - can support us in clarifying and metabolizing our current challenges and relating to ourselves with kindness and clarity. Written reflection is also a powerful mechanism for getting the stresses and issues we soak up as leaders out of our heads, hearts, and bodies and on to the page where we can relate to them differently - ideally with a little healthy distance, more agency, and more self-compassion. Something to try: Try setting a timer for 10 minutes and write (by hand or type out) about what is feeling unclear or heavy for you this week. After 10 minutes, check in with yourself - how did that feel? What, if anything, is clearer to you now? Repeat once a week and see what themes or shifts you notice after 3-4 weeks.
2. Nurturing Practices - Self-care for leaders is non-negotiable. As a leader we are here to serve those we lead. If we neglect ourselves, we can’t be of service to anyone - not our team, not our company, not our family, not our community. Self-care is an important mechanism for metabolizing the heavier, harder, and lonelier things we carry as leaders. Something to try: How can we get clear on what specifically will help you feel nourished and capable - Make a list of three activities or practices that you know nurture you, refresh you, or refuel you? Perhaps push yourself to make a distinction between activities or practices that truly nurture versus those that serve as a distraction or numbing tool. Now that you have a short list - how might you support yourself in scheduling time for each during your upcoming week?
3. Community - Many of us carry an invisible and immense burden of social conditioning which tells us that it is our individual contributions and efforts that matter most, that there is something extra laudable about muscling through it alone. I believe that we aren’t really supposed to be doing any of this alone. We are meant to be in relationship and in community with one another - co-creating, collaborating, thriving and achieving wonderful things together. Something to try: While leadership can feel lonely it doesn’t actually have to be. Perhaps peers or mentors from inside or outside the organization would be open to having a standing call with you to talk through each others’ current challenges. What professional, alumni, local, affinity, spiritual, or other networks are you plugged into where you might find some community? What does leading together, rather than alone, look like for you?
4. Support - Leaders at all levels have widely varying degrees of both capacity and capability when it comes to providing emotional support - perhaps the leader you report to isn’t very skilled at supporting you in this way or isn’t at a place in their journey where they have capacity to support you. It might also be that they don’t know what you need or how best to support you. Something to try: If you could ask for one supportive behavior or action from your manager, what would that be? What does asking for this look like? When will you ask? If your manager is not a viable option, how might a leadership coach or therapist walk with you on your leadership journey?
Leadership can feel lonely - showing up as a selfless, servant leader is bound to feel that way sometimes. I hope these thoughts and questions have added a few new ideas to support your exploration of this topic.
Onward,
Emily
About this newsletter: A Human Endeavor is a newsletter that I write about leadership - it is imperfect. For me, it is an exercise in reflection, clarification, sharing, learning, growing, and being of service to others.
If you are interested in exploring 1:1 Leadership Coaching with me or a leadership development workshop for your team - I’d love to chat with you. Please reach out to me at emily@osomar.com or you can use this link to find some time.