Loneliness at the Top: What I’ve Observed About Sustainable Leadership

In my role leading a wealth management practice, I occupy a somewhat unusual vantage point. I sit across the table from business owners, CEOs, and managing partners during some of their most consequential conversations, discussions concerning liquidity events, succession planning, and the financial architecture that will support their families for generations. These conversations reveal something that rarely appears in the professional literature: the profound toll that leadership exacts upon those who bear its responsibilities.

CEO burnout is not a phrase most of these leaders would apply to themselves. They speak instead of being “stretched thin” or “running hard” or simply acknowledge that sleep has become elusive. Some, particularly those in their late forties or fifties, initially attribute their symptoms to a midlife crisis, that familiar cultural narrative providing a more palatable explanation than occupational exhaustion. Yet the patterns are unmistakable once you learn to recognize them, and increasingly, the research confirms what these conversations have long suggested.

A Deloitte survey found that 70% of C-suite executives have seriously considered leaving their positions to find something that better supports their wellbeing.¹ That figure warrants careful consideration. Seven in ten senior leaders have contemplated walking away, not for superior opportunities or greater compensation, but simply to escape. This is not a marginal phenomenon affecting the uncommitted; it describes the predominant experience of executive burnout in our era.

The Particular Isolation of Leadership

What distinguishes executive stress from other forms of occupational pressure is its compound nature. The weight of consequential decisions, certainly, but also something more insidious: the progressive isolation that accompanies authority. Even among one’s own executive team, the CEO occupies a fundamentally different position, accountable to all, yet unable to confide fully in any.

Harvard Business Review research found that nearly half of CEOs report feelings of loneliness in their roles, and 61% believe this isolation negatively affects their performance.² I find these numbers entirely credible based on what I observe in practice. There are conversations a CEO cannot have, concerns that would alarm employees if voiced, vulnerabilities that might undermine board confidence, and doubts that family members, however loving, cannot fully comprehend.

I recall a client, a second-generation business owner in his early fifties, describing a period when he was contemplating a necessary restructuring. For weeks, he told me, he carried that weight essentially alone. His executive team needed him to project confidence; his board expected decisive action; his family perceived his distraction but could not understand its source. “The loneliness wasn’t a failure of my support systems,” he observed. “It was built into the job.”

That observation has stayed with me. The isolation these leaders experience is not incidental to their roles; it is structural. And structure, unlike circumstance, does not resolve itself through willpower, positive thinking, or conventional stress management techniques.

How Does Executive Burnout Affect Financial Decision-Making?

Here is what I have observed across hundreds of client relationships: leadership burnout does not remain contained within professional boundaries. It metastasizes into every dimension of life, including, perhaps especially, financial decision-making. The phenomenon manifests first as decision fatigue: that progressive erosion of cognitive capacity that renders each subsequent choice more difficult than the last. Leaders describe a persistent mental fog that clouds what was once clear thinking, an inability to hold complex variables in mind simultaneously.

I have witnessed otherwise astute business owners make decisions during periods of exhaustion that they would never countenance when operating at full capacity. Some become excessively conservative, retreating from calculated risks because they lack the cognitive bandwidth to think clearly about probability and reward. Others swing toward impulsivity, drawn to the magical thinking that often accompanies chronic fatigue: the fantasy that one bold transaction might simplify everything. Both patterns represent departures from the strategic planning discipline that built their success.

The research confirms these observations. Studies in occupational health psychology indicate that executives experiencing burnout demonstrate measurable impairments in decision-making, with particular deficits in risk assessment and long-term planning.³ For leaders whose decisions shape both organizational strategy and personal wealth, and for many business owners, those categories overlap considerably, this represents a material concern. Our team has explored the particular challenges facing business owners whose wealth is concentrated in their enterprises; burnout compounds those risks in ways that rarely appear in financial models.

Have you ever made a significant financial decision regarding your business, investments, or estate while operating at diminished capacity? Most leaders have, whether or not they recognized the impairment at the time.

Recognizing the Physical Symptoms and Warning Signs

Burnout, as the World Health Organization defines it, involves three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism toward one’s work, and reduced professional efficacy.^⁴ What I have found, however, is that these clinical markers often manifest late – after considerable damage has accumulated. The earlier signals are subtler, and they frequently emerge in the texture of conversation rather than in explicit acknowledgment. Physical symptoms often precede the psychological ones: persistent fatigue unrelieved by rest, disrupted sleep patterns, unexplained tension in the neck and shoulders, and digestive irregularities that medical examination cannot fully explain. Chronic stress suppresses the immune system, leaving leaders more susceptible to illness; the executive who “catches everything going around” may be exhibiting an early warning sign rather than simple misfortune.

The first behavioral pattern I have learned to recognize is the loss of enthusiasm for achievement. When a client describes a significant win, such as a major contract, a successful acquisition, or a record quarter, and the telling lacks any discernible energy, something important is revealed. Victories begin to register as brief respites from pressure rather than genuine accomplishments.

The second pattern involves presence, or rather, its absence. Leaders experiencing burnout often describe an inability to disengage mentally from work even during moments designed for restoration. Their minds rehearse upcoming challenges through family dinners, vacations, and ostensible rest. The body may be present; the attention is elsewhere. This feeds the burnout cycle: exhaustion impairs recovery, which deepens exhaustion, which further impairs recovery.

The third pattern, perhaps most telling, manifests as performance rather than presence in leadership itself. Several clients have described the sensation of “going through the motions,” executing observable leadership behaviors without feeling genuinely connected to the underlying purpose. The leadership skills that once felt natural now require conscious effort; the intuition that guided sound decisions grows unreliable. This dissociation, once articulated, often proves to have been building for months or years. Unlike a midlife crisis, which typically involves questioning life direction and seeking new meaning, burnout represents a depletion of capacity rather than a search for purpose. However, the two can certainly coincide and compound one another.

These patterns appear across industries, company sizes, and leadership tenures. They are not personal failings but occupational hazards that our professional culture has systematically normalized.

References

1. Deloitte, “Women @ Work 2024: A Global Outlook,” Deloitte Global, 2024. The survey included C-suite executives across multiple industries and found that 70% had seriously considered leaving their positions for roles that better supported their mental health and wellbeing.
2. Harvard Business Review, “Research: CEOs Are Lonely and That Affects Their Performance,” Harvard Business Publishing, 2023. The study surveyed over 400 chief executives and found that loneliness in leadership positions correlates with diminished decision-making effectiveness.
3. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, “Executive Burnout and Decision-Making Impairment,” American Psychological Association, 2023. Research indicated that 26% of executives report symptoms consistent with clinical depression, compared to 18% in the general workforce.
4. World Health Organization, “Burnout an ‘occupational phenomenon’: International Classification of Diseases,” WHO, 2019. The WHO defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.

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