Being a Lonely Boss

I recently posted a short statement that it can be very lonely as the boss of a company, especially when you are a person that likes to be liked. The post and more importantly the sentiment within it received an incredible response in terms of views and reactions, which has promoted me to elaborate on the thinking underpinning my statement.

An ex-employee of mine once said to me that everybody thinks that I am happy all the time and on the occasions that I don't appear my normal self everybody thinks something terrible has happened. I remember thinking at the time that even though I had just been up all night with one of my children and felt drained, I still l tried to appear happy and full of energy. My wife accuses me of having a front for work and friends and a more normal "grumpy "self once I return home. So what is going on during this process of leading a company and projecting one image and yet feeling very different at times beneath the surface?

Reflecting on my younger days I have always had the kind of personality that can manage my own emotions during the ups and downs of life with little help needed from my parent or friends. Whether that personality trait alone is the connection to my next observation I don't know, but I do know that most (not all) of the people around me at work and outside of work seem to gravitate towards my ability to cope with life and offload their problems in the belief they are in safe hands. Even senior employees seem incapable of managing their emotions and frequently offload their issues to me either through direct requests for help or via more politically driven conversations that I can see have double meanings and hidden requests for emotional support. I enjoy if not relish this responsibility and it feeds into some kind of image I have always been striving for. I am very open about my need to be liked and my dread of being seen as not coping with problems that are thrown my way. You could argue the situation I find myself in is one of pull and push. My open and publicly strong personality pulls people towards offloading their emotions onto me and the nuisances and difficulties of everybody's life in and out of work frequently push our emotional balance to breaking point. So why is the role so lonely if I enjoy taking on this responsibility so much and I can cope so well with my own emotions?

Not everything in life is good day after day, my life is no exception. Problems at work and home are abound for us all, and when one side of your life is well balanced it seems that there is always something in another aspect of your life that is worrying or concerning. I am sure we don't need a list of things we all have the potential to worry about, but I don't need to go much further than thinking about my children, marriage, health and running a company to cover a multitude of interconnected worries and concerns that I mentally toil with daily. So if you are a person who takes on other people's worries alongside your own and yet appears to cope, is this a fa?ade with the potential for a complete emotional breakdown one day, or are you born with the ability to cope with more worries and problems ?

I think the answer lies somewhere in between the two points. There must be a breaking point for everybody no matter how good they are at coping, but I do think some people are more capable of dealing with day-to-day worries than others: I think you are born with this ability. So why is somebody that can cope with taking on their worries and others, not yet at their breaking point, lonely?

In my opinion, once you have been seen in your life to relish and cope with taking on the responsivity for others, and cope with your own emotions, nobody around you ever asks if you are ok- ever!! Now that by definition is a very lonely place to be.