Career Talk: Leading with Loneliness - Yes And No

When I first started working as a manager, my mentor shared with me that being a manager means accepting loneliness.

YES, but loneliness is not a bad thing, it is a reality that needs to be accepted. When we accept its existence, it means we dare to face it so that we can solve it. And I have also experienced different stages of loneliness.

The first story happened when I used to lead a team of young, talented and extremely compatible brothers. Everything was fine until one day because of disputes from the founding parties, we were stuck between the decision to leave and stay, to separate and establish a new company and stay in the current company. In the management role, I was alone in the management team because the stakeholders all had their own reasons but did not share clearly. They gave me the right to make decisions without a clear view of what was going on. I was alone and disconnected from the management department. But I still had a team and my brothers sat down together to share their wishes and thanks to that conversation, I knew what I needed to do to ensure the stability and interests of the team while limiting violations of professional ethics. I decided to support the separation and leave when the team was stable in the new organization.

The second story is when I was assigned to be in charge of a team that was disbanding and facing many customer complaints and what the team had been doing was not my strong domain. It is understandable, I was immediately isolated by the members of the team. But I was aware that my important job was to stand up and take responsibility for customers, coordinate with other managers to handle customer complaints and maintain contracts. When I had the opportunity from the client to continue, I had to face isolation, abandonment and lack of coordination from the members. Fortunately, I received support from the company when accepting the changing of resources, recruiting new people to compensate so that I had time to approach my team.

NO, in fact, both stories above not only talk about loneliness but also show that there is no completely loneliness. We work in a collaborative work environment, the archievements are from the efforts of the whole team, so there will always be support and coordination from the team.

If we consider loneliness in management as a problem, then to solve it, we need to:

• Identify the source of loneliness and accept it. This is also the first step in facing it to solve it.
• Build connections outside of work. The meetings outside of work are very useful and give us new and more positive perspectives on what we have been and are facing.
• Keep causual regularly with the team so that all parties can understand each other better, thereby making coordination more effective.
• Seek help when needed, do not take on everything.
• Trust and share responsibilities with others.
• Accept diversity. Sometimes expecting others to be like you will make us lonely because each individual is a unique and different version of each other.
• Take time for yourself as well as continuously upgrade yourself so that we are always proactive in all matters.