Lonely but Focused

Is it lonely at the top? According to Andrew Cave and Steve Tappin, the authors of the new book The Secrets of CEOs (reviewed here), it truly is. Almost half of the 150 chief executives they interviewed said the job was “intensely lonely” and they didn’t know who to turn to for advice. The authors found this to be a common response:

I can’t talk to the chairman because in the end he’s the one who is going to fire me. I can’t talk to my finance director because ultimately I’m going to fire him, and I can’t tell my wife because I never see her and when I do, that’s the last thing she’ll want to talk about.

This doesn’t surprise me. The best chief executives are experts at finding the right balance: the right work-life balance and also the right balance of transformational leadership (transforming the status quo by creating, developing and sharing a vision for the future) and transactional leadership (the skill and ability to handle the more mundane, operational, day-to-day transactions of daily life).

If the CEO doesn’t set his own agenda and his work life takes over, his home life will suffer. If he spends too little time on transformational leadership (it should be 75-80% of his time), his organisation may suffer in the long term.

A successful CEO remains focused and finds the right balance. He or she has to be suited to dealing with loneliness–finding that focus and balance requires plenty of self-reflection.