More on Lonely CEOs: How to Get Better

A few years ago, our founder and senior managing director Scott Maxwell wrote a series of influential posts on “The Lonely CEO”. He made a powerful case why the CEO at the expansion stage is indeed among the loneliest jobs there are. The CEO alone shoulders the responsibility for the growth and continued success of a young, fledging company, while trying to balance the demands of customers, investors, the aspirations of his employees, and the whims of the marketplace.

A recent study, cited by the Harvard Business Review, further confirms this observation with some very concrete data on a large sample of CEOs across the industry and stages of the company’s lifecycle:

Findings from our inaugural CEO Snapshot Survey™ (PDF)reveal that half of CEOs report experiencing feelings of loneliness in their role, and of this group, 61 percent believe it hinders their performance.

Clearly, being a leader of an organization and having the prestige and material rewards associated with such position also require a huge emotional toll and lot of sacrifice for them.

The article also points out that first-time CEOs are even more susceptible to the stress and sense of isolation that comes with new-found authority and responsibility. This is particularly important for us because as a Venture Capital firm, we work with many first-time founders and entrepreneurs and have a chance to partner with some of them as both investors and consultants, and these are issues that we need to be extremely aware of and be sensitive to.

The article also points out 3 main strategies to help alleviate this for CEOs:

• Accept Reality: This might be the most fundamental, and can only be done by CEOs themselves. To cope with the loneliness better, they would want to accept it as part of the responsibility they need to shoulder, part of the job, and tackle it head-on instead of trying to avoid it.
• Seek Support: Another article in the series by Scott Maxwell listed many ways and places to get support for the lonely CEOs. Check these great, practical suggestions out.
• Keep Moving: An essential quality of great leadership is decisiveness and confidence. The CEO’s can-do attitude has an incredible, magnetic effect on the employees morale and success, while indecision will further exaggerate the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness and isolation. I have also written about how to avoid paralysis by analysis and how to learn to start executing on a strategy early enough.

In addition, in a recent post, I discussed the challenge of balancing the CEO’s time spent on the inside or outside, in meeting or in reflection, and it seems that the hectic travel and meetings schedule can contribute to the sense of loneliness and isolation that CEOs feel as well. Having more internal face to face time with the senior managers will strengthen the internal support team and keep the CEO more grounded as well.

Hope that there will be more resources and articles that help recognize and address these issues – CEOs deserve to be happy, motivated and focused on building great organizations.