Leadership - Loneliness at the top part 2
Loneliness at the top part 2
People
When you are a leader you will be surrounded by people a lot of the time. It is unlikely that you will spend a lot of time on your own.
This might seem to contradict the idea of being lonely at the top.
You will attend many formal and informal gatherings and functions.
The problem is you will find it difficult to create friendships as your position will force you to remain detached.
It is this detachment that creates the loneliness.
It becomes hard for the leader at the top to engage people in casual conversation as the individual usually remains on their guard.
The good leader will still be interested in treating people as human beings rather than potential problems.
Standard
This loneliness stops you getting the feedback that you may find useful. It will be hard to find anyone who can create a benchmark for you or is able to give you coaching as required. If this is the case you may find it useful to attend training, development or information symposia that are pitched at your level. Here you will find like minded people who will be able to empathise with your position.
Skills
No matter how lonely you may feel you will still need to exhibit all the skills of good leadership, for example, influencing, decision making, motivation [see The Complete Motivation package], delegation, setting a vision etc.
Weaknesses
When you are a leader further down the ladder your choice of team to help you may be limited for all sorts of reasons.
You can protest and try to get the best but at the end of the day budgets and priorities may take over.
When you are at the very top you choice of team will be critical.