Leadership
Why Leaders struggle with Mental Fences?
And why we need to talk about it.
It gets lonely as we grow older, right?
A friend texted as we chatted late in the night after respectively long workdays.
I told her I couldn’t have phrased it better myself. In fact, I have wondered about this frequently myself.
As we slowly climb the professional ladder, does it seem to get a little bit lonelier? Does it seem a tad bit more difficult to build deep friendships unlike how it used to be? When we think of sharing unabashed thoughts, do only limited people come to mind? Do we feel more guarded in opening up about our personal life?
For some time, I thought maybe I was the only one who feels this way. I felt that maybe I was the one who is unable to find the right people to gel with anymore. I thought that maybe this is because over the years my personality has somehow morphed.
But then, I met two of my oldest colleagues-turned-friends this weekend.
Over coffee, I started telling them the plot of a TV show I had been watching (Atypical, if you are curious). It is about a boy who is on the autism spectrum — and despite the right intent, I just couldn’t find the politically correct words to describe the plot. So I ended up describing it the best I could.
And then one of them remarked -
Isn’t it great that we have at least each other to be politically incorrect with?
We laughed at that moment. But this feeling is all too real.
I call it the Leadership Palisade — a subconscious mental fence we build around us as we grow professionally.
Not Just an Executive Struggle
As I started researching this, I came across studies on CEO loneliness. One of them was a study by Suzan Bond, the former COO of a tech company and a leadership coach. She interviewed a ton of executives to understand their challenges and nearly each of them admitted to loneliness or isolation. She says -
“Throughout my career finding friends at work was easy. There were always people to go to lunch with, confide in, or have coffee with by video chat. When I became an exec, that changed. I didn’t have a confidante who I felt like I could just be myself with. I felt comfortable with the rest of the exec team but mostly we focused on the business at hand; we were too busy fighting fires to really connect as humans. It took concerted effort to create support systems to battle the loneliness.”
The more I talked to peers, I observed that this is not just an executive-specific struggle. This is something that new managers and mid-senior level professionals struggle with as well as they grow in their careers.
I am currently in the second decade of my career and trust me, I am not an introvert by any means. In fact, even my work has always required me to build networks and partnerships. So I have a fairly large professional network with whom I am well connected.
However, ask me to count the people that I could trust completely with my no-holds-barred thoughts. I could probably count them on my fingertips.
Why do you think this happens though? Perhaps as we grow in our careers, we do not need a set of friends anymore. Or maybe we become omniscient, so we do not need support from anyone. Or perhaps we start to dislike hanging out with like-minded people.
Of course, I am kidding!
Leadership Palisade is not due to a lack of intent, but rather mostly a function of access and priorities.
So why does it happen anyway? Well, two reasons.
One, Diminished Access
Organizations are typically pyramid-shaped. Imagine a large base of entry-level professionals, a smaller middle section of managers, a fraction of senior management at the top, and a single Head of the organization at the pinnacle of the pyramid (who reports to the Board).
As we make the treacherous climb up this leadership pyramid, our band of peers within the organization decreases. Also, being too close with people you are supposed to manage results in complicated workplace dynamics — so that is not a viable option either. Additionally, very often, there are limited growth opportunities to move upward in the management chain. So there is a subtle hint of competition between peers as well ( not always negative though). All of this together reduces our access to like-minded people who could have had the potential to become deep friends.
Two, Priority Pivots
While climbing this leadership pyramid, we also undertake a personal journey in parallel. Though not an absolute rule, but it is fairly common in our 20s and 30s, that we also decide to get married and (possibly) have kids. This is also the time we start growing and getting more responsibilities at work. Since non-work time becomes scarce, we end up prioritizing it for our partners/family. Late-night pub crawls often turn into diaper duties too.
And even if we ourselves are not caught up in these life pivots, we see that people around us are. The priority pivots of us (or people around us) limit the opportunities, flexibility, and time available to build friendships at work.
So Why This Matters?
It’s not that we never make friends at all once we start growing in our careers. But rather this -
As we grow personally and professionally, we become a lot more pragmatic and guarded in our interactions with others. This limits our possibilities to build new deeper unconditional friendships, unlike in the early professional years.
As new managers, executives and leaders, we might feel the burden of this subconscious mental fence more while changing roles, careers, and organizations and/or transitioning through major life events.
As I was talking about this with a friend, she also reflected that extroverts (who are used to building fast friendships at the workplace) might end up struggling more with a leadership palisade. As the extroverts are suddenly thrust into team management roles, they initially struggle with balancing friendships with people they are expected to manage. This can be unlike introverts who might always be comfortable with a limited circle.
However, It is crucial to realize that leadership palisade need not be a permanent state of being. And the starting point is to acknowledge our own struggles with these subconscious mental barriers. Only then can we break our leadership Palisades and find the right solutions that work for us!
If you are with me so far, then I would love to hear your thoughts.
Roselin Minj is a sustainability professional and currently leads partnerships at an international non-profit working on environmental issues. When she is not juggling PowerPoints and parenting, she enjoys being a librocubicularist. Join her fortnightly newsletter ThoughtShot to read bite sized learnings on life and leadership in 3 minutes or less.
