Lonely at the top? Why leadership wellbeing matters more than ever

Leadership can often involve putting your teams needs ahead of your own. Juggling competing challenges, employee wellbeing, and external pressures can be lonely. Recognising and reacting to your own wellbeing needs can make you a stronger, and more effective leader. Here we explore how to improve your own mental wellbeing for better organisational health.

Office employee at desk in modern workspace with colleagues in background, focus and workplace environment

Why leadership can feel lonely

Finding leadership isolating is not unusual. As many as 50% of CEO’s have reported feeling lonely in their roles². There are several structural and cultural reasons for loneliness at the top. These include:

Expectations of strength. One in three workers don’t feel comfortable speaking openly about pressures facing them¹. Workplace culture, stigma of speaking up, and fear of repercussions can make people fearful about admitting stress or other struggles. Leaders are expected to show confidence even during uncertainty, which adds pressure².
Lack of trusted peers. As managers progress, they inevitably end up with less people in their peer group. This means fewer people who understand the daily struggles and can be confidently confided in².
Pressure to prioritise others. Leaders can feel responsibility and expectation to put their team's wellbeing first, even if their own issues remain unaddressed. This is particularly challenging in an environment of high stress – which is common across the UK workforce¹.

In addition, senior roles often involve the need to make sensitive decisions which are not safely shareable within the wider team, creating a sense of distance from other team members².

The mental load leaders carry

Leaders are required to continually carry extensive mental and emotional loads². This can create exhaustion, and in some cases burn out^1,2. Some pressures are not always visible, including:

The need to make decisions under fatigue²
Being responsible for others performance and wellbeing¹
Dealing with periods of organisational change or uncertainty²

Prolonged stress can hamper leaders’ decision-making abilities, as well as their general mental functioning and creativity³.

Pressures affecting leaders aren’t only internal. External factors can also compound leadership stress, with data showing that young people in particular are affected by world events:

87% worry about climate change⁹
82% feel anxious about political issues and war⁹

Why leader wellbeing impacts teams

While leadership can feel lonely, the effect of poor leader wellbeing doesn’t exist in isolation. There is often a widespread impact on overall team culture, motivation and performance levels.

Leader's shape and influence employee wellbeing more than other factors⁴. This is because they can cultivate an atmosphere of psychological safety, role model healthy openness, and provide support that increases job satisfaction⁴.

Below are other key ways that leader wellbeing can impact organisational health:

Stress can be absorbed downwards. Leaders who struggle to manage their own stress levels, can negatively impact their team’s stress levels, as a ‘ripple affect’ can occur⁵.
Prioritised wellbeing increases productivity. Evidence shows that when wellbeing is taken seriously, teams experience better overall morale, better working relations and increased productivity⁶.
Team wellbeing starts at the top. While it’s not only a leader's responsibility to create team wellbeing, managers and leaders often have more power to influence positive mental health, via strong communication and support signposting⁷.

How to improve leader wellbeing

Leadership wellbeing is achieved through the individual actions of senior staff, combined with enhanced organisational support structures that reduce loneliness and isolation.

Reduce stigma around mental health
Normalising open conversations about stress, challenges and mental health concerns is an important first step for leader wellbeing⁷. This can reduce the pressure on leaders to mask concerns, as well as encouraging team members to share their own struggles⁷.
Increase safe spaces
With smaller peer groups to confide in, access to safe spaces to share is key. This can occur through coaching or mentoring opportunities, or trusted peer networks².
Invest in wellbeing support
Equipping leaders with the tools to manage their own workload and stresses, as well as those of their team is key. Training in these areas can facilitate better overall wellbeing, and performance⁴.
Be mindful of workloads
Getting to the root cause of leadership stress can be achieved through identifying excessive demands, overwork and poor support structures⁵.
Embed wellbeing into workplace culture
By building wellbeing into everyday workplace culture, leaders are better equipped to prioritise and provide opportunities for both team and manager mental health improvement⁸.

Being a leader can be a lonely experience. But by recognising and reacting to the signs of stress by enforcing boundaries, initiating self-care and cultivating shared responsibility, leadership wellbeing and improved organisational health is achievable.

References