Loneliness in Leadership: Who Supports the Supporters?

One of the loneliest things to be is a captain when your crew turns against you.

When I was younger, I had a leadership role in a youth organization, where I was responsible for developing and executing programs for young people over the summer. I was relatively young and early on in my career, but what I lacked in years, I made up for in experience, enthusiasm and preparation. I came to my interview with several weeks of programming already developed in full because I wanted to prove from day one that I was more than capable of doing the job. The recruitment team agreed and I was given the role. 

I decided I didn’t want to be a distant and commanding leader - I wanted to lead from within the circle of my team. The problem was, my team didn’t feel like I was qualified or deserving of my leadership role to begin with. They hadn’t seen my months of research, preparation and production, nor my years of relevant experience - all they saw was someone else on the team who convinced them that they would have been a better choice. My attempt at leadership was over before it even began. I was alone, and lonely, in my belief that I could succeed in this role.

I finished the summer hitting all my targets and providing a positive experience for the most important stakeholders - the hundreds of kids and parents who were expecting a program that was both engaging and worth their money. But I didn’t have that much fun doing it, because I felt disconnected from my team.

Why do so many leaders feel alone? The emotional toll of nonprofit leadership - carrying the weight of impact, staff well-being, and funding all at once - creates an environment where leaders often feel isolated and without support. It’s time we started having more conversations about loneliness, invisibility, and the need for support structures that go both ways. 

There are many reasons why people in leadership positions feel lonely: 

• At a very fundamental level, people in these roles usually have no or limited peers to confide in. In the nonprofit sector, many leaders sit between the staff and the board, with (often opposing) pressures coming from each side and no one else at their level with whom to share the burden of high expectations and multiple challenges. 

• Leadership positions are also often subject to intense scrutiny, and people fulfilling these jobs may feel they need to be perceived as having it all together, all the time. There is a pressure to be a role model, which can feel isolating if you aren’t prepared for, or used to, being seen in this light.  

• The weight of leadership can lead to imposter syndrome and be a source of self-doubt, especially for those new to their positions or with limited experience outside their current organizations. The difference between what one is expected to achieve compared to what you feel capable of achieving means that people often feel like they don’t deserve their positions, but they don’t share these feelings for fear of losing their positions.  

• They are also often responsible for funding sustainability, which is a huge weight to carry. When you feel you are solely responsible for ensuring the security of everyone’s jobs, it’s impossible not to feel alone.

• Leaders often have less free time for their personal lives, to develop non-work friendships, meaning they may spend most of their lives with their staff or their board. They may not have friendships outside of work to combat loneliness. Sometimes this can lead to blurred lines between personal and professional relationships. 

• It is often not appropriate for leaders to develop deep friendships with the staff. Among other things, the requirement to keep impartial, especially when navigating inter-staff conflict, could be compromised if a leader forms relationships that are too personal with specific members of their staff. 

• Nonprofit leaders wear many hats, and burnout is common, but this can be masked by busyness. Burning out when you are supposed to be the source of inspiration is a lonely burden to bear. 

Leaders in the nonprofit sector do a LOT: they inspire, motivate, delegate, fundraise, decide all sorts of stuff and lift everyone around them. If they have no one to share the burden of the role with, the loneliness felt, despite being surrounded by community, can be immense. These challenges may be experienced even more acutely by women, minority or marginalized leaders, and introverts.

While the statistics on how many leaders in the nonprofit sector are considering leaving the sector are unknown - we do know that one in five nonprofit employees overall are considering leaving their jobs. We can only assume that this number might be higher still for nonprofit leaders, who carry incredible responsibility often without much support or recognition. 

The cost of isolation in our nonprofit leaders is staggering:

• Emotional costs: in addition to stress, decision fatigue, and second-guessing oneself, without peers to help them recognize and acknowledge their own talents, leaders are some of the people most impacted by imposter syndrome and isolation-related burnout.

• Health costs: people without enough strong social connections are at higher risk of stroke, anxiety, dementia, depression, suicide. 

• Productivity costs: at work, loneliness reduces task performance, limits creativity, and impairs other aspects of executive function such as reasoning and decision-making. 

• Organizational costs: Feeling alone in a leadership position can lead to disconnection from the team, reduced morale, and leader turnover.

The irony is that leaders who often focus so much of their time on their team’s well-being and the organization’s wider community needs tend to neglect their own.

There are a number of practical and relatively easy solutions that leaders in nonprofit can do to help themselves feel less alone:

• Seek peer mentorship groups or leadership circles to give you a community of people operating at the same level as you, without the potential conflicts of interest confiding in people working for the same organization. 

• Connect with all of your stakeholders, but remember that they are your colleagues, not your confidantes. “It’s easier to be a friendly leader than to be a friend and a leader.” It’s important to build relationships while setting appropriate boundaries with staff.

• Consider engaging the services of a professional coach, who can help you develop skills and overcome obstacles. Like in sports, professional coaches may be tough on you from time to time, but you know they are always on your side, which can make you feel a little bit less lonely. 

• Initiate meaningful connections beyond the workplace. Next time you are craving connection, try an ‘ambush phone call’ where you call a friend without a warning text first. Now that the weather is warming up, get outside and around a campfire. The glow of a fire is a great place for connection - the cozy atmosphere paired with the disarming nature of sitting side-by-side can lead to some meaningful conversations. 

Combating loneliness doesn’t always require other people to be present. Advice like “get outside,” “start a gratitude practice,” “celebrate a little win,” or “finish a project” can be irritating to hear when you are lonely and tired. However, these simple actions have been proven to shift your body’s physiology and when built into your daily or weekly routine, they can have a real impact on your feeling of connection and purpose.

As a society, we need to do better. As facilitators of change, our nonprofit boards need to do better. They can support their leaders by:

• Fostering a safe space where leaders feel comfortable sharing their challenges as well as their successes. 

• Encouraging leaders to model healthy connection and rest, and supporting leaders in taking time for themselves.

• Normalizing reaching out, even, and especially, when leaders feel they "shouldn't" need to.

• Helping leaders build relationships with others in the sector by introducing them to people in your network who might be valuable sounding boards. 

• Taking on more of the burden for fundraising, financial management or other tasks that can help reduce your leader’s workloads. Ask how you can help - and keep asking. 

Did you know that part of what we’re trying to achieve with the Social Sector Social Club is to offer support to nonprofit leaders? Whether that’s Leadership Lunches or Peer Groups, we’re hoping to help leaders in the nonprofit sector find support and feel a little less lonely. We’re still building the frameworks and the tools to do just that, but we have a lot in store. If you’re interested in some support now, reach out to us!