Episode 278 Transcript:

[00:00:00] This is episode 278 of The Manage Track Podcast, and we’re going to talk about feeling lonely as a leader or at the top as we often refer to it.

Here are the two questions. This podcast answers. One, how do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role? And two, how do you keep climbing that leadership ladder and continuously get promoted, although the competition and the expectations get bigger. This show with The Manager Track podcast will provide the answers. I’m your host, Ramona Shaw. 

I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is seen as a source of contribution, connection and personal fulfillment. And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead. So everyone wins and gross. In the show, you’ll learn how to think, communicate and act as a confident and competent leader. 

You know, you can be. 

Welcome to this episode of The Manager Track podcast. Today’s episode is about the loneliness of [00:01:00] leadership. Oftentimes, early on in our career, we have this idea and vision of what it will look like to move up the ladder and maybe take up a leadership position. But then once we are in that position, some unexpected challenges start to pop up. One of which can be that you start to feel a bit lonely. You realize the distance between you and your team, or you and others actually starting to increase. You don’t quite feel as connected anymore as you used to, and because it’s a pretty common challenge, I thought we need to talk about it on the podcast.

And one thing I wanna make really clear. When you feel lonely, it doesn’t mean that you have that craving for more friends. I mean, the very specific loneliness we

experience that comes with this role. If this resonates and you kind of get a hint of like, yeah, I know what you’re talking about, then you know the [00:02:00] feeling I’m describing, it’s not necessarily, although possible, but not necessarily that you need more friends, but you start to notice the distance that built or is there between you and other people.

You are kind of not one of the team anymore, but you’re also not really part of the executive circle either, right? So you’re stuck in this weird middle ground where you know things that you can share. You talk about things behind closed doors that your former peers or your colleagues and friends even.

Couldn’t be privy to. You hear complaints that you can’t fully solve. And sometimes you have information that stresses you out or you have tasks to do that are high pressure and you know that your team isn’t dealing with it or your team might not even know about it.

So it feels different to relate to other people, to, to people that you used to relate to really [00:03:00] well. So that change or that development can, for many people feel pretty challenging. So, if this sounds familiar, I hope you feel somewhat validated that you are not alone, and it’s not you per se, right? So I’m gonna talk about this pattern that shows up for basically every new manager and likely also more advanced leaders. And more importantly, I’m gonna give you the tools to navigate this dynamic.

Without sort of feeling something is off, you are doing it wrong, or you just feeling dissatisfied with the role,

So let’s use a newly promoted manager as an example here just to make this a little bit more visual. So you get promoted, congratulations, but then you realize you kind of don’t fit in anywhere.

You are not as much as part of the team anymore as you used to be, but you’re also not part of any leadership group. You feel a bit in this. In between. You might have leadership meetings, but they don’t really feel like a team. It [00:04:00] feels like a group of people coming together. You also, I realize that you can’t vent upward because you’ll look like you can’t handle it.

Or if you are venting upward, then be mindful of that. You also can’t vent to your team because that wouldn’t be a good thing to do as a manager. Your peers, therefore are no longer there to have these conversations with you. So you end up feeling like you’re kind of sitting on an island.

You smile, you keep quiet. You try to do the best that you can for your team and to project confidence and professionalism towards your new peers and your senior leaders. But internally, you’re still trying to hold this all together and figuring this out quietly, this is what I often hear as it being the internal reality when I coach leaders, by the way, again, from new managers to also more senior leaders.

And I wanna give you [00:05:00] another example. I was scrolling through a forum recently and it was about management and leadership, and someone posted about this exact feeling. And the responses were overwhelming.

There were hundreds of managers saying, oh my God, yes. Nobody told me about this. I wasn’t prepared to feel this way. I thought the problem is me, and so on. But here’s the thing, and please really hear this, this isolation isn’t a bug in the management system or an issue with you.

It’s actually a bit of a feature and. Nobody really explains that to you when you take the job. No one really shares that with you, that yes, you are going to become a little bit more of an island some. They’re definitely an island. Some are becoming more like a peninsula. And then it, by the way, also really depends on the company culture that you’re in.

So while you might be in a leadership position, you might be working [00:06:00] virtually or remote and you really feel like an island, someone else in a different company but in a similar role may have a different culture and they feel a lot more integrated. Regardless of where you are right now, this is an important thing to pay attention to and be aware of because if you are currently in a situation where you’re not feeling like an island or a peninsula, chances are a high that as you change roles or jobs and companies, you’ll find yourself in a situation or in a span of months or weeks where it can feel really isolating. So knowing how to deal with this and manage it is important.

If you learn these things before it happens, you’re better prepared and it will be less of a stressful experience.

More tactically speaking, imagine you’re in meetings where you learn about layoffs coming, but you can’t tell your team. You are dealing [00:07:00] with a team member who’s struggling, but you can’t share the details with the rest of the group.

You’re trying to protect them still. You do a lot of coaching behind the scenes, a lot of support. You don’t get to say, I spent seven hours this week helping this underperforming team members give me some kudos here, or that’s where my time went. No, no one will know what you did those seven hours. No one’s giving you a pat on the back.

No one’s there to support you or to be a sparing partner and think this through. You are gonna have to figure this out on your own.

Maybe you have a manager who’s supportive and has the time to walk through this with you and talk through with you, but maybe not. Another example. You’re getting pressure from above, right? From the leaders above about the targets or the quality or the timelines.

Now you need to translate this into motivation. Not panic for your people. [00:08:00] And if you are now thinking, yeah, right, that’s what I get. And then on the other side, I have my team who feels overworked, underpaid, stressed out at capacity. And I’m supposed to like dial this up even more.

Speed up the process, increase the expectations. How am I going to do this? And there’s no one else. Next to you, who’s gonna help you with it? It’s all gonna boil down to you. It’s not teamwork. No, it is on you to translate these expectations, to bring them to the team, to work with the team, to achieve the goals, to manage those set goals upward and back with the leadership team to make sure that you have that information flow and communication going, and you advocate effectively, but it’s all on you.

And so the question that many leaders ask themselves, and I’ve had these conversations many, many times, is how do I process all of this like pressure and emotional labor without being able to discuss it [00:09:00] with anyone? And a lot of it, no one ever knows about, I can’t.

Not only am I not able to talk about it, I’m also not getting any credit for it. It’s not gonna go on any resume, it’s not gonna be any achievement in terms of what you’re building or the portfolio that you’re developing. And with an IC mindset, like thinking, well, I need to have these different projects on my resume.

I need to demonstrate what I did here or there. And now suddenly you’re spending hours on this type of work behind the scenes. All alone. No one knows about it. No one sees it. Then it can feel like a waste of time. But trust me, it isn’t. That is exactly what leadership looks like and exactly what it means to become better as a leader.

It is that type of work that 99.9% of people have to put in, and other leaders know it. They may not ask you for the details, but they all know it. So don’t worry if you feel like you’re not getting [00:10:00] that recognition or some kind of reward from all the behind the scenes work that you’re doing.

But really what I wanna highlight here with these different examples is that you’ve become an emotional shock absorber to a degree for your organization, right? You’re absorbing stress from above, and you’re filtering it before it hits your team. Complaints, frustrations from below. You’re sort of soaking those up.

You’re then figuring out what you can act on versus what you just need to hear. And you’re carrying all of that weight often with nowhere to put it down. , No one to support you with. And again, I’m gonna emphasize this one more time. That is part of the job. It’s not that other people aren’t there to help or aren’t willing to help, or you are not having strong relationships.

No. It’s literally, for most leaders, this is what it looks like.

For example, a manager shared that when they realized their team had a teams chat, [00:11:00] like a chat in a, you know, like a Slack teams chat, without them in it, they felt pretty devastated and it really brought this sense and feeling of isolation to the surface. Why can’t we all just talk like we used to? We are still a team. I don’t wanna be the authority here.

I just wanna be part of you all. And realizing that that kind of is not the reality of what’s happening. Is the sad part for them. But the problem actually to sort of from an outside perspective is that if your structure, your organization isn’t set up in a very collaborative way where this idea of horizontal leadership, which by the way, if you’re interested in that concept of how do you flatten the hierarchy and do this effectively, check the show notes for a link to our episode on horizontal leadership. But if that is not what has been lived and what the culture [00:12:00] is in your organization, then it’s normal for your team to recognize your authority solely by you having the title or the position so it them talking without you being there is totally normal.

I remember walking into a room and realizing that. The conversation immediately shifted. The moment they saw me coming into the room, they were talking about something that I wasn’t supposed to hear. And so they pretended like they’re talking about something else. And yeah, in that moment it felt hurtful.

It felt isolating. And. I was wondering like, what am I doing wrong? I’m trying really hard to have good relationships with them, but I also realized that although I loved my manager, there are many moments when I would have a conversation with my team member and then the manager would come in and we would change topic because there’s certain things [00:13:00] that you just know you’re not gonna say in front of your manager certain conversations that aren’t appropriate.

Considering the hierarchical context, so if you are assuming, for example, that they were gossiping in that slack or teams chat, or in that lunch room or meeting room, or if they’re saying things that actually be hurtful to you.

That is likely not the case. I don’t know for sure. I’m, you know, that happens. But in most cases, that is an assumption that is based on our own insecurities, not on what is actually happening. If your team talks among themselves without you being there, and it’s a different kind of conversation, and when you enter the room, it’s not per se, a bad thing.

Now it turns into a bad thing. If they’re not being honest with you, if they’re very direct about what they like and don’t like, but the moment you walk into the room, they pretend everything is great. Now we have a problem [00:14:00] with the open conflict opposition and probably the trust in the room. But leaving that aside, this is totally different topic.

Just the fact that they are gonna have dialogue without you there versus with you there. That’s different. There’s nothing perceived wrong with that. So if you notice this is happening, take it as a signal.

Pay attention to how honest people are with you. But don’t read too much into that, your team simply needs space to process, to possibly complain, to vent, to bond without worrying about how it looks to management. And that’s good for them. Even if it stings a little bit. You and your team members can like and trust each other, but you are still their manager. That relationship has changed whether you wanted or not.

The moment you got promoted or moved into that leadership role or got hired, there was this [00:15:00] gap. And again, this is in the context of a hierarchical structure and so. Really what we kind of don’t talk about often is that the higher up you are on the ladder, the more pronounced this will be.

Like more secrets that you can’t share, more information that you have to withhold, more decisions that you can’t fully explain because of some, the information that you, you can’t share more weight that you carry alone and less time from your boss. To go run things by or to vent or to unload. Most senior leaders or leaders or executives, they don’t have time for it. They don’t like it. They want you to go figure out how to deal with that on your own and then come in a constructive, effective way to them. Not because they don’t care on a human level, but just because many of them don’t have the capacity, the time to be there on that more emotional supportive level with their senior leaders through their direct [00:16:00] reports. They expect that once you reach that level, you kind of figured out how to go about it, or you’ve built a support system like an executive coach who would help you figure these things out. Process, events, come up with strategies for you to have an outlet without using up your CEOs or senior leaders Time. Now before we talk about solutions, there’s one more thing about what’s driving the isolation. Let’s say in your head, you have information that you can’t share downward because it will create panic or crush morale and you have struggles that you can’t share upwards because you’re worried about looking incompetent. So where exactly are you supposed to process this stuff?

Right? That’s sort of the crux of the question or the problem here being in. A management position in that sort of sandwich between team and senior level. , And sort of that being that emotional buffer and being [00:17:00] in this somewhat isolated situation. That is one of the reasons why many managers burn out. It’s not that the work was too much or too hard,

it’s typically because the emotional labor is too much to carry alone. From my executive coaching clients. One of the things that I hear is, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through this without your support by my side. It is literally like I would have burned out and if I didn’t have our weekly call or a biweekly conversation where I could feel the pressure just coming off me, where the things would, you know, could release some information, I could share it, and then I could come back with a clearer mind to work out what to do next in a very strategic and mindful, thoughtful way.

To not take on even more emotional burden, but to actually keep that off me lead effectively, and then work through the different challenges. And that if you don’t have that support system built [00:18:00] in, it can feel really heavy and it can actually cost you your job or your wellbeing, and if you compare your job, your performance, or your wellbeing with the cost of an executive coach. It’s an investment with a very high ROI and I think sometimes when leaders feel like they need to just push through and do it themselves and that they can persevere, it’s a great strength.

But that can easily be overdone where it’s actually costing you way more than it’s helping you. Executive coaching is in nine out of 10 cases. Not for the under performer, but for those who wanna elevate and who don’t wanna waste time running in circles or burning themselves out.

If you ever felt like, hey. It would be so helpful for me to get this off my chest to talk to someone who’s seen many of these situations and challenges before who can give me a more neutral and outside perspective who can take some of this emotional labor off me that had to the show notes and schedule a [00:19:00] strategy call

so you and I can talk to clearly identify what are the biggest challenges, what kind of support would help you the most to get you to your result faster and easier, and if coaching is going to support you in that process, you can learn more about that as well. So now as we’re transitioning into solution, of course that executive coaching is one of those solutions to navigate and compensate for the isolation, but also your external network. Is something that will help with this. So you need people outside of your company or outside of your direct line of management that understand what you’re going through.

And I hear this from successful managers all the time. They say, Hey, my external colleagues and network was far more valuable to me than internal supervisor who all often seemed. Either threatened or dealing with the same challenges at the same time, or just didn’t have the capacity to [00:20:00] support.

Your peer at another company doesn’t have skin in your game. They can give you real talk. They can share about their own situations. They can give you feedback. It’s very different than if they have to be concerned about their relationship and how that’s gonna impact their work. It won’t,

So they will be able to exchange that information more freely and it actually can feel like true support, for example, you could go to them and say like, Hey, I have a team member is really pushing back on a new process and we’re really pushing up against the, the sort of the deadline of the implementation. And I need their buy-in.

My gut says to give the team member more time to adjust, but I’m feeling pressure to just force compliance now or to have them, you know, feel some consequences. What would you do? Have you been in a situation like this before? And then hearing from other people.

Been in this situation, currently in this situation can be very eye-opening and give you perspectives again [00:21:00] without that political complication. So more specifically, these are professional networks.

This means, hey, grab coffee with someone who’s in a similar role in a different organization. Try to connect based on the common ground that you have, based on the shared experience. Build that relationship, either one-on-one, if that’s your preference in sort of networking events in professional associations, or.

With an executive coach or in a leadership development program. One of the benefits of our programs that we run is that they’re small group, but they are facilitating this kind of peer conversation where someone might say like, Hey, one of the things that I learned in this particular situation is to not do A, B, C, and I had to learn it the hard way.

But based on what you’re sharing, I think this might be helpful. And the other person in the program, this just happened a couple weeks ago, would then say like, oh my gosh, I never thought about it. I’m so glad you said that. I would’ve totally walked in and done the opposite. This kind of [00:22:00] exchange can happen in a, what we call like a safe space, right, of space where they don’t have to worry about what it looks like.

There’s no one there that they’re, that reports into them or they report into it is that container where we can have these conversations and that is huge. Now the other thing in terms of solutions that I wanna highlight is to really check in with yourself. One of the things that happens when we feel isolated is that we can actually neglect ourselves even more.

So not only do we feel that isolation from our team, what we start to sort of isolate from ourselves too. We start to not. Treat ourselves with the respect that we actually want others to treat us with. We let that go. We don’t actually take care of ourselves anymore. We feel that isolation in the outer world.

We suddenly start to sort of isolate from ourselves too, we can move into this execution mode, try to shut down the emotion or there, sort of that [00:23:00] feeling of sadness or loneliness. And then just become very task oriented, very focused on what needs to happen and then we can neglect ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And this stuff will then sort of eat you up inside and it then feels isolating on the inside as much as it feels isolating on the outside. And at that point.

And as you hear me talk about this, you probably can immediately see how that would create even further problems. It would make it harder for you to have the capacity to build relationships, to, despite the hierarchy, to to have the bridges there and to persevere and have the resilience to get through some of the isolating experiences and to be able to carry the stress and the load that you have to carry.

Sort of being in that, in that sandwich. And here too, I’m gonna give some very specific examples so that you see how this may actually show up and sneak [00:24:00] up on you. So if you’re staying late, because you don’t want to burden, your team may tight deadlines, so you’re just gonna do the work yourself.

So you’re abandoning your own plans. You or may not take lunch because you’re available for everyone else’s needs, right? You’re helping them with their problems. You’re now no longer eating or not eating well, you might not be using your PTO because you’re worried about what will happen when you are gone, how your team will be doing, and so you just kind of push through.

And if these things now seemed familiar and you’re like, yep, I can see how I’m starting to do this or how I’ve been doing this, then that should be an alarm bell. This should be like, hold on. Because I feel maybe the isolation I wanna now overcompensate by always being there for them, by telling them, Hey, I am with you.

I’m on the same page. I roll up my sleeves. I am right next to you, even though I have the title of the manager. Don’t worry, like I’m not just the [00:25:00] authority. I’m gonna be there, right With you doing the hard work so that you feel less isolated and you feel again, like teamwork, like you’re in there together and as a result of that, you are just isolating yourself.

You are. You’re just abandoning sort of your own self-care and what’s important to you because you’re doing it all for the team in that sense of belonging. Ultimately, we all know the saying like, you cannot pour from an empty cup, and if you burn out, you are not helping anyone. In fact, it’s gonna feel even more isolating, find something that helps you connect to yourself. First, it could be the gym, a hobby, I don’t know, walking in nature, spending time with your dogs or pets, whatever that might be for you can create somewhat of a consistent way to deal with the stress, but also to know you are more than just work. There’s something else that keeps you grounded and connected to sort of [00:26:00] you as a, as a human, and then the second part of that is to look for ways to build connections in the outside world, like we talked about with the network, the associations, the coach, and so forth. Find what works for you both on the internal side of how you ground yourself, but also on the external front. So you have a, the ability to converse, to find peers who are not in that same line, or to find an association, a group or a coach.

Again, to have that outlet. Find what works for you, but do find something. This really shouldn’t be optional if you’re serious about your career. Your leadership. This isn’t optional. This is sort of like part of the system you need to build in order to grow from there. It’s the foundation to build upon

Now as we wrap up, a quick thing to highlight, we often feel lonely because we believe we have to sort of do things that other people don’t want us to do. So we have to separate ourselves. Like, yes, [00:27:00] my team would wanna know all these in pieces of information and would want me to be totally transparent, but I can’t either because I’m not allowed to, because of the ramifications that that would have the consequences.

Or because it’s just confidential or sensitive information, it would ethical morally not be, the right choice. On the other hand, your boss or your manager wants you to do things or to execute in a way, or to ask your team to do something that you don’t think is sustainable or you don’t think is right.

So everyone wants something from you and saying no, or pushing back or holding up the guards then can make you the bad person, and again. You by yourself. Not you as an entire team, but just you.

And that is what’s isolating now, what managers who do this well understand is that sometimes being lonely in the moment is the price of making the right decision for everyone in the long term. When you don’t share that, there might be layoffs coming because it would cause panic and [00:28:00] productivity to crash. You’re carrying that stress alone to protect your team’s wellbeing. When you push back on your bosses, let’s say unrealistic expectations or timelines, lines, because you know it would burn out your people, you are risking looking difficult to protect your team’s sustainability.

So this is the burden of leadership. You make decisions. That serve the greater good, even when it means you carry more weight alone. And so this, you carry more weight alone is inherent. It’s in most cases the feature, not the bug in the system. So refrain from seeing isolation as a problem.

Right? The loneliness you feel isn’t punishment or isn’t a sign that something is going wrong. It can actually be a sign that you’re doing your job well, when you reframe it that way and you see it more as a featured in a bug. The isolation suddenly then becomes less about what’s being done to you as to [00:29:00] like they are isolating from me.

And it’s more about what you are choosing to do for others. You are choosing to process difficult information so your team can focus on their work. You, you’re choosing to have uncomfortable conversations with your boss, so your team doesn’t have to navigate the political complexity. You choose to do things in the background that no one knows about.

All by yourself, carrying the load all by yourself because it’s the right thing to do for the organization, for the team, for the department that’s not a problem. That is actual leadership.

In essence, and I really hope this episode helped with this, is that if you think you’re the only one experiencing loneliness, and it has to do with you. Your personality, your leadership competence, then that makes it so much worse. But when you understand that the vast maturity of managers have moments, times, sometimes it’s weeks or months, or for a longer time than that, where they [00:30:00] feel lonely, they feel they carry things alone.

Like quite heavy things and that is part of the process that now you feel less bad about dealing with the situation. You realize that’s just part of the, part of the job. , And with that I’m gonna wrap this episode. I hope this episode helped to bring some light to something that many managers feel, but don’t talk about often.

I gave you twos that suggestions in terms of what you need to do for yourself to make sure you are not. Distancing yourself from your humanness and then what to do on the outside world with building the right kind of connections and build your support system, and then how to change your mindset about.

The loneliness in itself and whether or not that’s a good or a bad thing, when you change your mindset about it and you realize there are healthy ways to deal with it, and everyone experiences it, it takes some of the load, the heaviness out of it,

when you then see someone talk about something that they don’t want you to hear. You know, [00:31:00] that’s just part of the process. That’s not se a problem. So I hope you feel that sense of validation, but also clarity on what’s going on. If you again, feel like you don’t quite have the right support system in place yet that would allow you to reach your goals, then reach out and schedule a strategy session by clicking on the link.

In the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. We do this episode of The Manage Track podcast. We’ll be back again next week. Take care.

If you enjoy this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader. People love to work with. This includes a free master class on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it out at archova.org/masterclass. 

The second resource is my best-selling book, the confident and competent new manager, how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out at archova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. 

You can find all those links. In the show notes down below.