I was looking out for a coach and someone offered me his services. While I was talking to him to figure out whether I could be someone who can get coached by him, he said, "Many leaders feel lonely at the top. If you do too, don't be too surprised. The best thing is to recognize it and learn how to deal with it." I have heard so many leaders, be it in the corporate world or in the world of politics, say that they are lonely at the top. I believe that this need not be the case.
While we are all individuals and have so many skeletons in each of our closets, we can share most of these secrets to someone in our lives - could be our spouse, our partner, our children, our parents, our friend, our relatives. Once we share our thoughts with someone, we are not lonely anymore.
In the corporate world, this is easier said than done. We have created a brownie points culture in most organizations. With so much emphasis on individual performance and pay based on individual contribution, we systematically kill team work. People just do not know who to trust. My secret, when shared with someone, just seems to do the rumour mills and before I can wink, comes back to me in a different form than what I intended. So, my secret, remains my secret. If I cannot trust, I don't share and this is the beginning of loneliness. If we decide to work as teams and not as individuals, to trust each other as good human beings, there is no room for this loneliness.
Till I reach the top, I have someone who I can talk to, share things with and enjoy the moments. When I reach the top, I become conscious all of a sudden. The same colleague with whom I was able to share everything suddenly cannot be trusted. He/she does not have all the information that I have. He/she does not know how vulnerable I am at times. If I end up sharing this with her, I end up sharing the chinks in my armour and she could become my boss. Hey, do I really need that? Of course not...so, I stop sharing...and when I stop sharing, I become lonely. If we stop for a moment and recognize that leaders are human beings, not those in-destructible heroes in movies, we would appreciate vulnerabilities and appreciate leadership better.
Many of us believe that we can compartmentalise our lives as "personal" and "professional". Our families or friends need not know what happened in office today....if it was not good, my family recognizes it because I am a bit grumpy. It is difficult to leave your feelings outside your home as you walk in because in today's world, the laptop and the smartphones are walking in with you. Instead of compartmentalising our lives, if we are able to share our experiences of the day with our partners or children or parents or friends (without having to mention names), we have found our coaches at home!!!
In the process of climbing up the ladder, one always undergoes a tough journey. Having reached the top, many get into a sense of insecurity.The anxiety of potential threats to the throne naturally puts the person in a forced state of seclusion. What many forget is that this world is big enough for many of us to survive and peacefully co-exist. About compartmentalising our lives as personal and professional, all what i can say is that both are very much dependent on each other.
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