AC/DC sang how it’s not just a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. The lyrics reference the lonely and exclusive, and often unpleasant experiences that accompany stardom. Leadership has many of these feelings, in common, because both career journeys are isolating: Not because others aren’t present, but because few share the same experience and consequences.
Leaders (and rock stars) can be surrounded by people, yet still, must carry decisions alone. Not due to secrecy, but due to asymmetry of risk. The person who advises and the person who decides, do not lie awake with the same thoughts. One can walk away from the outcome. The other cannot.
This loneliness often shows up subtly: Fewer candid conversations; more filtered responses; and a narrowing of who speaks freely around you. People begin to manage their words in your presence. Not out of dishonesty, but out of self-preservation, deference, or simple awareness that proximity to power carries stakes. You notice it first in what isn’t said. The pause before the answer or the answer that sounds like what you wanted to hear.
The error leaders often make is assuming something has gone wrong.
It hasn’t.
This is the natural result of occupying a position where words alter outcomes. Your approval shapes careers. Your doubt, even expressed casually, can redirect months of work. People aren’t being cowardly — they’re being rational. The room has changed because you changed what the room means.
What compounds the isolation is the expectation that it shouldn’t exist. Leaders are supposed to be connected, visible and trusted. And they often are — just not in the way that reaches the unguarded parts. There’s a difference between being respected and being known. Many leaders are surrounded by the former while quietly starved of the latter.
The solution isn’t more disclosure. Radical transparency doesn’t dissolve the asymmetry — it just redistributes discomfort. Oversharing uncertainty to seem human can destabilize the people who depend on your steadiness. The goal isn’t to eliminate distance. It’s to understand it clearly enough to stop resenting it.
It’s selective resonance. A few relationships, chosen carefully, where the social contract is different: where feedback isn’t filtered through self-interest; where disagreement doesn’t carry consequences; and where the conversation can be real. A peer outside your organization. A mentor with no stake in your decisions. Occasionally, someone inside who has earned and been explicitly granted special access.
The loneliness of leadership isn’t a failure of connection. It’s the cost of consequence. Carry it honestly; place your trust deliberately; and, resist the urge to fill the silence with noise just to make it feel smaller than it is.
© Dian Griesel 2026 Perception Dynamics Inc.
Image by @Grok
