Walk it off. In little league baseball and many school sports activities of my youth that was the prevailing medical wisdom; “Walk it off.” If you had a bruise or a charlie horse, walk it off. Keep the blood flowing. Probably not horrible advice, but far from the informed approach that today’s sports trainers would bring to bear.

My advice to you is to Talk It Out. You may have just had a visceral response to this advice. You might have even stopped reading. If so, that’s understandable. Sitting in our chair as the cliché says, is very lonely. I’ll return to my advice, but first, I want to look at why it’s lonely, because in part it should be. Yet you do need to talk things out as part of your leadership approach. Let’s unpack why it makes sense that it’s lonely at the top.

It’s lonely at the top in part because our ego won’t allow us to ask others for help. We got here through whatever trials we endured along the way and that makes us unique. Even uniquely qualified to do what we do sometimes. Let’s face it, after all the sacrifice, that’s a nice feeling. It may be appealing to indulge the self-image of the lone rider; tough, independent and able to fend for themselves. Some of us are even smarter, faster and stronger than those around us. In my opinion, all these reasons need to be put aside. Because the truth is, to be a successful leader, you must rely on others. And that reliance demands vulnerability. Turning outcomes over to others and making yourself vulnerable to their failure.

There is an aspect of the loneliness at the top that we can’t directly do anything about, and that is the importance of not letting the team down. We can’t blast out of our door and yell at the top of our lungs how badly things are going and how uncertain we are about the future. Even if we feel that way. We are responsible, in part, for the energy of the team. In the same way, we can’t burden our close relationships with things they can’t do anything about. This one is an even more difficult fine balance. You don’t want to mislead your partner about how well you are doing, but it’s a disservice to your partner if you burden them with all the micro uncertainties that you must manage on a day-to-day basis. Because to sit where you are, you have made it through countless uncertain situations. Some came out successfully. Some not so much. But you continued. So now you have perspective about these things that some will work out and others will fail, but you and your team will make it through to the other side. So, you don’t share all the little and some of the larger issues you must sift through so as to avoid burdening someone with worries they cannot address.

So all-in-all, we’re a little egotistical and maybe more buttoned up around our spouses than we should be, but all is well right? Not really. The process of speaking challenges and issues we struggle with out loud, influences the way we think about them. In a very high percentage of situations, it yields new possible solutions and perspectives about the risks and consequences of our situation. Even if the audience is the dog, saying things out loud yields insight. And if you have access to a coach or can cultivate a spouse that can listen actively and ask questions, the process is more powerful.

One last point on remaining buttoned up. CEOs are listed among the professions with the highest suicide rates. I believe this “lonely at the top" problem is central to that statistic. If your outlook is particularly dark, talk to someone.

Call To Action

Establish a process for talking it out:

Get a confidant in place that you can safely share things with, even if they can’t provide advice.
Consider hiring a coach as a sounding board.
Use your board for a sounding board (appropriately).
If you have a life partner, work on cultivating that relationship so that you can share things while maintaining a balance between burdening them with things they can’t act on and leaving them in the dark about things they should know.