Dear Change Leader,
Sandra had been in her new role as Vice President for six months when she noticed something she hadn’t expected.
She had the title. She had the team. She had the authority to make decisions she’d once had to wait for others to make. And yet, sitting in her office after another long meeting, she felt something she couldn’t quite name — that she was missing out on some important conversations.
She couldn’t talk to her team about everything on her plate — some of what she was navigating involved them. She didn’t want to burden her family with the complexity of what was keeping her up at night. And her peers? They were managing their own pressures, their own optics, their own uncertainty.
It wasn’t that Sandra was struggling to lead.
She was just doing it — very much — alone.
You’re Not Imagining It
If Sandra’s experience resonates, there’s a reason for that. Research validates the sense that “it’s lonely at the top”, with one study reporting that half of CEOs report experiencing loneliness in their roles — and of those, 61 percent believe it negatively affects their performance. This experience isn’t limited to people with “Chief” in their title. Leaders at all levels experience a sense of aloneness — and it can be felt most acutely by those who have recently been promoted into leadership roles.
The reasons are structural, not personal. As leaders rise, the scarcity of true peers intensifies feelings of isolation — particularly in smaller or more specialized organizations, where there may simply be no comparable counterpart with whom to discuss challenges honestly. Add to that the weight of confidentiality — what you know that you can’t share — and the political complexity of managing upward and downward simultaneously, and the isolation starts to make sense.
A Stanford University study found that nearly two-thirds of CEOs are not receiving coaching or leadership advice from outside consultants or coaches — even though nearly 100 percent said they enjoy the process of receiving it and would welcome it.
That gap — between wanting support and actually having it — is one of the most common, and least-talked-about, realities of leadership I encounter.
Three Ways to Build the Support You Actually Need
The answer to leadership loneliness isn’t to become more self-sufficient. It’s to become more intentional about building the right structures of support — the kind that gives you the honest thinking partnership that the role itself rarely provides.
- Find your “no-agenda” people.
The most valuable conversations leaders have are often with people who have nothing to gain or lose from your decisions — who can listen without an agenda, push back without consequence, and ask the question that no one inside your organization will ask. This might be a peer in a different sector, a former colleague, a coach, or a trusted mentor. The key is that they have context about leadership without being embedded in your specific situation.
This week: Name two people in your life who fit this description. When did you last have a real conversation with them — not a check-in, but a genuine thinking conversation? If it’s been more than 90 days, that’s your first move.
- Separate the role from the person.
One of the hidden drivers of leadership loneliness is that the role changes your relationships — often in ways that are difficult to name. People “manage up” to you. They edit themselves around you. This isn’t a failure of your relationships; it’s a feature of authority. Recognizing this helps you stop interpreting the distance as personal rejection — and start being more intentional about where you find genuine connection.
This week: Reflect on one relationship that has shifted since you moved into your current role. Is the distance something you’re accepting as inevitable — or something you can proactively address?
- Invest in a peer group before you need one.
The leaders who navigate the hardest seasons best are almost always those who built their support networks before a crisis hit. Experts advise that leaders form a group of trusted advisors from the earliest days of a new role — specifically to get the kind of honest, unvarnished feedback that’s hard to come by at the top. Peer advisory groups, professional networks, and structured coaching relationships are all worth exploring — not as remedies, but as regular practice. (This is one of the key reasons that I facilitate peer groups specifically for change leaders — a structured space where honest conversations can actually happen.)
This week: Identify one structured community of peers — a professional association, a cohort, a peer group — that you’ve been meaning to join or engage more actively. Take one step toward it this week.
Back to Sandra
What Sandra eventually discovered wasn’t that her situation was unique. It was that she had been treating her isolation as an inevitable feature of the job rather than a solvable problem.
She started a monthly call with two leaders she’d met at a conference — no agenda, just an honest conversation. She re-engaged a coach she’d worked with earlier in her career. Small moves. But they changed the texture of her leadership in ways that rippled outward: clearer thinking, better decisions, and — perhaps most importantly — the quiet confidence that she wasn’t navigating it all alone.
Leadership was never meant to be a solitary act. The leaders who navigate the hardest seasons best aren’t the ones who need the least support — they’re the ones who built it early, intentionally, and without apology.
Until next time,
P.S. If what Sandra experienced resonates — and you’re ready to do something about it — I work with leaders in two ways that speak directly to this:
- One-on-one coaching: for leaders who want a dedicated thinking partner as they navigate complex change.
- Facilitated peer groups: for leaders who want the kind of honest, no-agenda conversation that’s hard to find inside your own organization.
If either feels like the right next step, reply to this email. I’d welcome the conversation.
Recent Articles
Read other editions of this newsletter for further insights:
“Are You Being Persistent — or Simply Stubborn?” explores one of the most consequential distinctions in change leadership — and how to tell which one you’re doing.
“Disruption Is Your Teacher” makes the case for developing leaders through the disruptions your organization is already facing.
“Navigating the Estuary” examines ways in which leaders can assess changing conditions to probe for ways of moving forward.
EFFECTIVE CHANGE RESULTS FROM INTENTIONAL LEADERSHIP
We’re a leadership and organization development consultancy. My team and I work with leaders like you to prepare for and lead successful change processes.
Here’s why our clients call us:
- Leadership Coaching: I support leaders as they navigate transitions into new roles or expanded responsibilities.
- Group Programs: Bringing groups of leaders together, I facilitate learning experiences and months-long programs that equip people to be effective change leaders.
- Effective Teams and Organizations: I work with leaders and their teams with tailored processes that increase their effectiveness, building layers of aligned teams that transform organizations.