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 evaluating the chief executive. A donor or client may become a friend, but the relationship still carries financial or contractual expectations.
Researchers Bao and Jolly followed 416 leaders over three time periods and found that perceived power distance reduced social closeness between leaders and followers. This, in turn, increased leader loneliness (Bao & Jolly, 2026). This finding suggests that loneliness at the top is not simply about whether someone is friendly or socially connected. The org chart itself can create distance. As responsibility increases, the number of places where a leader can speak freely decreases.
Leaders Need Somewhere to Put What They Carry
Later in the same interview, the leader described what he did when something at work really bothered him. At times, he would call a longtime executive friend outside the organization. He did not want his frustration to spill downward into the people he managed. His approach was simple: talk to someone he trusted, get it out, and move on.
Leaders are people. They experience frustration, uncertainty, anger, disappointment, and fear like everyone else. We all know it’s not good to suppress our emotions, but leaders have to be thoughtful about where, how, and to whom they process them.
Gabriel, Lanaj, and Jennings tracked 86 leaders across 10 workdays and found that what leaders did with loneliness mattered. When leaders dwelt on the emotions of a difficult day, what the researchers call affect-focused rumination, they were less engaged and less likely to help others the next day. But when they shifted toward problem-solving and thinking through what they might do next, the pattern reversed. They were more engaged and helpful the next day (Gabriel et al., 2021).
In layman’s terms… how leaders process what they are carrying matters.
In a newer study, Nieberle and colleagues followed 174 managers across 1,351 workdays. When leaders felt lonely, they were more likely to pull back from their work and from the people they led. That withdrawal then predicted more loneliness the following day (Nieberle et al., 2025), causing them to pull back further, and so on.
Loneliness, in other words, can become a cycle. It can make leaders do the very thing that makes them lonelier.
Relationships Where You Don’t Have to Be the Boss
Zumaeta found this same tension in interviews with C-suite executives. The study described two conflicts senior leaders repeatedly navigated: role vs. person and distance vs. closeness. Leaders had to occupy the role while still being a person, and maintain some professional distance while still needing connection. One way they coped was through support from their networks (Zumaeta, 2019).
That is exactly what I heard from the leader I interviewed. His external peer understood the role, but he did not have to lead him. In this way, trusted peers can be especially valuable because they understand the experience without requiring all the gritty details. There is something powerful about being able to describe a difficult situation and have another person say, in effect, “Yes. I know what that feels like.”
Leadership Essential Reads
Build These Relationships Before You Need Them
The practical lesson here is simple. Leadership alters relationships, and the higher you go, the fewer places you can speak freely. Leaders don’t need a huge network, but they do need a handful of trusted people, often peers, who understand the work and do not depend on them as their boss. Those relationships may not happen naturally. Leaders have to seek them out and invest in them before they need them.
The leader I interviewed had plenty of people around him, but what renewed him was time with people who understood the role and let him stop being the boss for a while.
To lead sustainably, build relationships where you do not always have to lead.
