You may remember my ranty blog from February 2024. If you’re finding leadership a lonely place, you’re just doing it wrong. Well, now felt like a good time to reiterate my rant and add that developing a network and finding your tribe is a critical way to ensure you’re never, ever lonely. Join me as I share my thoughts on the criticality of connection and the essentiality of allies.
Looking forward to joining you on your learning journey!
What I said in 2024 still stands. Lonely leaders are those that aren’t connecting with their stakeholders and are ineffective in including others in decision making.
This is what I said 2 years ago. It’s still relevant and applicable 2 years later.
group of professional people at a breakfast network, chatting with teas and coffees and pastries on little plates. Brand colours navy and gold
I often see the meme ‘leadership is a lonely place’ and have to bite my lip. Or sit on my keyboard-ready hands. ‘In what context might leadership be lonely?’, is the question I always ask myself, and usually come back to the same answer…
“If you’re a leader of people and you’re feeling lonely, you’re just doing it wrong.”
The days of leaders boxing themselves in to ivory pigeon holes in the penthouse of the shiny glass coup are thankfully behind us - or at least for those who’ve smelt the coffee that’s been brewing for the last 5 years. Leadership is no longer about the cult of leader and no longer symbolised by the hero at the top of the pyramid. Today, leadership isn’t about knowing all of the things and making all of the decisions.
Leadership is about inclusion, nurturing, empowering and delegating. The activity and practice of leadership mean taking an anti-loneliness approach to leading and inviting people in, or better still, inviting yourself over to theirs. Leading is now about being the sheep-dog that takes care of those in their charge not the wolf-pack leader that takes charge of those in their care. To be a an effective leader you must surround ourself with your people and your stakeholders, because you can’t be a leader in an empty room. That’s just self-mastery.
If a leader’s behaviour perpetuates strategic level disconnect from organisational- and stakeholder-others, they’re missing an essential element of modern day leader effectiveness: inclusive decision making. When you don’t include others in pinning down problems, solution ideation and formulating implementation strategies, you’re doomed to feel loneliness and an incredible pressure to be the thinker, option appraiser and decision maker.
And the workforce of today simply won’t stand for it either. They want inclusion at every level and those that aren’t included are quietly slipping out the door and quitting the outdated notions of those looking backward in favour of those looking forward.
A lonely leader is an exclusive leader, leading an organisation to obsolescence. Be an inclusive leader that leads from the front with vision and leads from the back with self-awareness.
Within an organisation, leaders should be cultivating conversations that share problems. That’s the best way to tap into the hive mind and develop good solutions. Cognitive diversity is one of the key components that makes an organisation able to think differently and be most effective in solving its challenges.
Sometime leaders have to make difficult decisions, of course! Even when leaders have to decide how to solve a human behaviour problem, but they should do that following advice from an expert. Occasionally, leaders have to make the final decision about something, after a forum has developed options. But, putting in the networking and inclusion mechanism to create the forum in the first place is the job of the leader. None of these things should be done in isolation. A leader has teams, advisors and contacts on whom they can call. And if they haven’t, they need to develop their network.
Over the last 3 months, my focus has been on networking. Networking to find out what’s what in my locality, who’s who and what’s happening. I’ve been trying to find out how service users, patients and clients move between organisations and how those organisations ensure handoffs and pathways are effective. Why? Two reasons.
Firstly, I’m new to this locality. We moved to south east England just under a year ago. It’s a place I’d rarely visited, let alone spent time in. So, building up a network and knowledge of the local public and charitable sector has been essential. Secondly, I wanted a job. And in wanting a job, I wanted to know the names, purpose and people in local organisations, because, just knowing which organisations have job vacancies isn’t enough. In today’s world, organisations operate as systems. We’ve realised and now readily acknowledge, that no man is an island, and no one organisation can meet the needs of a whole population alone.
In the same way that organisations need to operate as enablers and facilitators in a system, so do its individuals. Leaders also need to establish networks of enablers, facilitators, advisors, supporters and critical friends. That’s why knowing the names of people with skill and wisdom is essential and knowing on whom to call is critical.
Over the last few months, I’ve become involved in a women’s AI network, an interim leaders placement company, a tech for good community, and online freelancers meet-up and I’ve regularly attended new business workshops, webinars and training. I’ve become involved with a plastic free refill shop as a voluntary director and I’ve taken on a voluntary vice chair role of an early years and family support charity. In the past, I’ve been connected to a social enterprise development group. Over the last 2 years, their counsel has been gratefully received. I’m confident that, if I needed to ask someone some professional advice, there would be more than one person I could message or call on for help. And likewise, I’ve made sure people can find me and call on me too.
The Last Word
Leadership isn’t a lonely place; it’s an accountable place. It’s responsible, risk-laden and reputation affirming (or destroying). Don’t mistake doing difficult things with doing things alone. If when you look to your left and your right you don’t see colleagues, peers, professional friends and business acquaintances, get on to LinkedIn and get networking. Get into the local forums, networks, communities and clubs in your niche and make your leadership connected. No leader needs to feel alone - but if you do, call me!
Nia is an expert leader who talks the talk and walks the walk. She is an academically awarded thought leader in self-aware leadership and practices self-aware leadership every single day in her role as a strategy and operations leader and interim charity sector CEO.
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The shepdog vs wolf-pack framing is spot-on for describing modern leadership. I've seenthat shift play out in a few orgs lately where leaders who kept hoarding decisons found themselves isolated while those who built genuine advisory circles stayed energized. Networking isn't just nice-to-have anymore, its structural.
The shepdog vs wolf-pack framing is spot-on for describing modern leadership. I've seenthat shift play out in a few orgs lately where leaders who kept hoarding decisons found themselves isolated while those who built genuine advisory circles stayed energized. Networking isn't just nice-to-have anymore, its structural.