Lonely at the top
As I write my book – and as we shape Beyond The Green Curtain: A Little Less Superwoman, A Little More Real – I keep coming back to one simple truth: leadership can be a lonely place.
In my Cathedral speech (you can watch it here, there’s a section called A Day in the Life of a CEO. It wasn’t meant to be a “how to” guide. It was meant to be honest. Because for all the incredible parts of this job, there is a cost. And one of the biggest is loneliness.
When I look back over my career, these have always been the five hardest parts of being a CEO:
Making the best decisions you can with imperfect information. You don’t get the luxury of certainty, only the weight of responsibility.
Making sure people leave your office, your meeting, your Zoom – feeling better than when they arrived.Inspired, seen, energised. That’s on you, every day.
Lonely at the top. There’s a Fast Company article I came across recently that rang true: women, as their careers progress, report feeling more lonely, not less . The rooms get smaller, the shoulders to lean on fewer. And even with the best colleagues and family, there’s a weight you often carry alone.
Creating time to think strategically while driving the transactional brilliance everyone expects. There’s never enough time for both.
Trying to have any sort of “normal” life alongside it all. The juggle is constant.
I write often about what’s wonderful in leadership – the joy of shaping vision, building teams, and making a difference. But I want to be just as open about the parts that are hard. Because this myth that leaders are invincible helps no one. It keeps people silent, struggling, and believing they’re failing if it feels heavy.
Loneliness in leadership is real. And for women, especially as careers progress, it can be acute. That’s why I believe so deeply in creating spaces to tell the truth about it – not just the polished headlines, but the unvarnished reality.
Behind the Green Curtain, we’re all just human.
If you’re leading and feeling lonely, know that you’re not the only one. And maybe, just maybe, the bravest thing we can do as leaders is admit when we need others too.