lonely at the top

The loneliness that often comes with being a CEO may seem like a small price to pay for the rewards, recognition, and power that come with the job. As the old joke goes, “It might be lonely at the top, but the view is terrific.”

But being isolated at the top can compromise your decision making and leadership effectiveness, both of which require having as much firsthand information about a situation as possible. Senior executives tend to be shielded from organizational problems and data; they are given limited and filtered information about their operations, employees, and customers. While time constraints make some of this filtering necessary, having a layer of handlers who make their own decisions about what the leader should or shouldn’t see exacerbates the isolation.

...deference to authority is deeply ingrained in most societies. So it’s natural for employees, even at the highest levels, to occasionally hold back opinions and feelings that they fear might contradict or irritate the boss...

So what can you do to reduce executive isolation?

...get out of the bubble. All senior leaders are surrounded by physical or virtual trappings of office — the formal decor, the board dinners, the financial reports, the assistants that manage travel and scheduling, the intensive calendar that leaves little time for reflection. To break through the isolation, you need to periodically escape... For example, when Xerox was undergoing its turnaround under Anne Mulcahy, in the early 2000s, each member of the senior team took responsibility for a small portfolio of key customers. This forced them to go meet these customers and hear how they felt about the company. Fidelity used to require all senior people to spend time fielding calls on their customer service line, which gave them direct contact with customers.

Executives can institute skip-level meetings, where they talk with lower-level teams (without their bosses being present) about business conditions, customer reactions, and how to implement strategies. They also can conduct town halls, where employees ask questions and engage in conversations. Creating these listening posts gives executives unfiltered data to factor into their decision making.

Finally, tell your senior team to push back when they disagree and to challenge your thinking. Make sure that you have team members who have the courage to speak up and can be critics. This is easier for some people than for others, so you should actively recruit or promote at least two or three people who will serve as important counterpoints. You need to have the strength of ego to let them challenge you, both privately and during team meetings, and to really listen to their ideas. It won’t always be easy, and sometimes you may need a coach to help you with this process.

Ron Ashkenas

"How to Overcome Executive Isolation" Harvard Business Review. February 2, 2017