Leadership can change relationships by adding distance, even when people genuinely care.

Leaders need trusted people outside the org chart to process what they carry.

Loneliness can cause leaders to withdraw, which can make the loneliness worse.

In one of my research interviews, a nonprofit leader described returning from a national conference with other executives who did work similar to his.

Meeting these other executives was energizing, not because any of them introduced a revolutionary new leadership technique, but because he simply spent time with people who understood the challenges that came with his role. They talked about what was working, what wasn't, and the problems they were trying to solve.

He said: “It is lonely at the top sometimes.”

The phrase is cliché, but it gets at something real. My interviewee was not a leader who lacked people around him. He had employees, board members, partners, clients, and community leaders around him every day. What he lacked were relationships where he didn’t have to be the boss.

Leadership Changes Relationships

One strange reality of leadership is that the more people you’re responsible for, the fewer people you feel free to be yourself around.

Think about the employee who gets promoted and suddenly becomes the manager of people who were her peers the day before. Does she still get invited to the after-hours venting session at the bar? The old peers may genuinely care about their new leader, but they still know that this person now influences their workload, advancement, and compensation.

And this isn’t just with employees. A board member may be encouraging while also........

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