Executive loneliness. Overcoming isolation in the business world.

Nick Jonsson was born in Sweden but he left in the 1990’s because he wanted to learn English. He moved to Australia where he played golf professionally for a few years before moving to South East Asia where he has lived and worked since 2004.  Mainly working in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, Nick took on a number of MD roles leading large international companies.  After a while Nick realised he was quite lonely and he can now see he was isolated perhaps because he had ‘elbowed’ his way to the top, something many executives do. He changed his life, leaving the corporate world five years ago and now knows many other senior executives find themselves in an isolation trap.

Nick tried to balance the stresses of his working life by playing hard. Initially he did this through exercise but life had its ups and down and he was divorced in 2015.  This left him feeling even more isolated both at work and at home so it was natural that he wanted to go out and meet people. It was a lot easier to go to the bar instead of going to the gym and having a couple of drinks was OK in the short term but it became a bad habit. He stopped his gym membership and became a regular at the bar, which in turn became a downward spiral. He realised a change was needed but this was very slow. At the time his friends were happy to see he was out and about, it was good to see him enjoying himself, they were worried about him just exercising and being on his own. It felt natural and he didn’t realise it before it was too late. He put on a lot of weight, his health deteriorated, he had hypertension and high blood pressure. He was only 42 years old and was in poor health.

Then with the added stress of work it got to the point where he couldn't stop the drinking. He realised he was addicted. It had been secret and silent for a long time and he didn't want to admit he had an addiction and issues. He was at rock bottom but had to admit it to himself and to other people to get out of it. People had thought he was coping and didn't have a problem with drink and it's the same with loneliness. It seems as if everything is OK until you suddenly realise it’s a problem. Until you realise it's a problem you don't know its problem.

Once he was on his way to recovery, Nick wanted to know if he was the only one suffering in this way. He sent out a survey to other senior executives to find out how lonely they were in their roles. His first finding in 2019 was before the pandemic and showed that 30% of the senior executives he surveyed actually admitted they were suffering from loneliness in the workplace. He went back to the same group in 2020 during the pandemic and the figure had gone up to 59%. He was definitely not alone!

The senior executives Nick surveyed worked in the C-Suite in large multinationals based in Singapore. A number of them were European or American, working as regional directors in large companies so they were displaced from their home countries and often only had their immediate family with them. They needed a different type of support without knowing it.

Nick knew about the loneliness so the next question he asked then was whether this was something they would talk to HR or their boss to. The answer was that 84% wouldn't. The type of role they were in meant they were the people who needed to be seen as being the strongest and stereotypically not able to ask for help. Some people have external executive coaches but many people find it hard to trust internal bosses or HR so who did they turn to? When asked do you seek professional help 75% said no so they were coping by themselves. Nick feels that one of the few good things that came out of the was that psychologists and therapists could be seen online so people could start to reach out without being seen in a waiting room somewhere. Anonymity is there now so there has been some progress but people are still reluctant to talk about it and seem to deny it because the stigma is still there.

Many of these leaders are what Nick calls anxious over achievers like himself. He was not good at high school went overseas to study at university. Once he got a taste of winning scholarships and topping some classes he wanted to take it to the workplace.  What was important was getting to the top, getting power and getting promotions packages. What he saw when he conducted his interviews was that many were as anxious as he had been and thought the way to prove themselves was to achieve and get power in the company. There are many leaders walking around feeling very anxious.

Men tend to define themselves by their work about what they have rather than who they are. If the job is lonely then that's what you've striven for and your sense of achievement is linked to. The realisation that this can feel empty can have a real impact. Nick found that women tended to have a few close friends that they could be vulnerable with. They could share some of the challenges or issues facing them. If you are exposing yourself to a friend that friend will help and guide you but men often have good friends to play golf with, to have couple of drinks with or have a good time with.  Nick’s way of relaxing meant not bothering friends with issues he was having at work, rather it was something he left at the office. He went out and had a good time but then woke up in the middle of the night worrying about a problem that was still there in the morning. He was bad at having someone to talk to about his issues and it was the same with many of the executives he interviewed.

Men can be just as emotionally intelligent as long as they are skilled up to be but there may be a cultural thing around the acceptance that men shouldn’t talk to each other about difficult issues. The current generation breaking it down through and there is a new attitude. Some of this may come down to parenting. In Asia people are very quiet about what’s happening in their family and there is a lot of stigma about mental health and addictions generally.  People keep things to themselves a lot more than in the western world where we are speaking up a lot at the moment.

At work the leaders are often a parent substitute and need to create an adult culture where just deciding you don't like something isn’t OK because you still have to come to work and perform. If leaders are lonely they will find it hard to provide a positive adult culture with supportive mechanisms right through. Vulnerability has to start at the top. No one is going to knock the bosses door and open up about the issues or challenges they are facing if the leader has never been seen to be vulnerable. Why are we all so scared of admitting to others that we are going through a challenging time?

The world of work is changing and although styles of leadership before Covid weren’t working, they are still are being pursued. A new style of leadership may be needed going forward. Career limiting mistakes can drive leaders to loneliness. The easiest thing to do is make a mistake - it’s not about all the brilliant decisions you make, its how few bad decisions you make. This is what leads to the dumming down of the average.  It’s a sign of weakness to make a mistake. Admitting weakness is a sign that we are struggling and that is a mistake. We need to change that. If you have a leader who is lonely, ethical decisions start to be comprised as well because the leader becomes weaker.

There is some positive change though. In his own company Nick operates a fail fast policy so as soon as you make a small mistake people need to admit it and share it so everyone can learn from it. If there is a culture where people are comfortable sharing their mistakes and what they learned from it, people would not be so scared and mistakes will be dealt with and not be so costly. For example, in Nick’s company the marketing team have an additional budget called ‘Test and Trial’ which they can use to try new things so if it doesn't work out its ok and people learn from the exercise.

Nick’s networking organisation, Executives’ Global Network (EGN) Singapore providing more than 600 senior executives and business owners with a safe and confidential space where they can share their challenges, receive support, and learn from each other. It’s as if you have your own private advisory board or an external management team. You can put your problem on the table for the facilitators or moderators to discuss and the aim is that executives leave a session feeling the pressure has been lifted. Just talking can help because even if they don't get the answer, they get sympathy and support. It’s a shared experience. The perception that people at the top don't get lonely is a very dangerous one.

You can find out more about Nick at nickjonsson.com

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
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Look for the opportunity

Carrington Smith trained as a lawyer and practiced law for seven years before becoming an executive search consultant. She now owns her own executive search business so has to interview different executives to see if they fit the criteria for opportunities she is recruiting for. Part of this is finding out if they would be a good fit culturally and the way she does this is through character and values. Her favourite question is that ‘we all have moments that define us, can you tell me about an event that has shaped you and how it did’. During the pandemic she decided to write a book to provide the answer to her question.

One of the things Carrington really looks for is resilience. She finds that people who haven’t had a defining moment haven’t had any hardships in life so are not able to deal with a ‘hurricane’ whereas to someone who had life experiences and developed emotional resilience it might just be a ‘rainy day’. Executives need to react and change quickly and be able to flex their resilience muscle.

In the US there a are number of laws and regulations regarding what you can ask people in an interview situation. Carrington uses that particular question because it’s very open ended. People respond with many different answers but being willing to be open and vulnerable can tell a lot about them. Some say getting married or the birth of child but this doesn't give much about character, values or resilience. You need to dig deeper – some moments can be almost everyday but also very transformative.

Carrington came from a very religious family where there was emotional, spiritual and physical abuse. When she got to college she was raped and the family response was to tell her not to talk about it. Now people ask how do she find anything good in being raped. How did she bounce back from it and not be defined by it. She knew she didn't want to be defined by it. When we tell ourselves about not being defined by something it’s generally not talking about it. The traumas that happen and that we don't want to be defined by we don't talk about and we don't deal with them. They then become what Carrington refers to as ‘the monster under the bed’. They end up controlling us because we haven’t dealt with them. We have to face these things head on. Feel the emotion then go back to what happened to us and incorporate it as part of our life experience. That is how we grow.

The motivation for Carrington’s book came from the pandemic. When it hit she realised her very ordinariness made her story compelling. We all experienced universal trauma but the way she responded to it was different.  She saw it as the opportunity of a lifetime – a historic moment that we might never have again to stop, evaluate and change course. She felt she was equipped to handle it so wrote her book by knitting her stories together as a road map and as a gift to share how she had experienced different traumas and got though them.

An example is her second divorce. The death of her marriage meant she got a whole new life. She went from she had lost to what she had gained – the opportunity to reshape her life. Carrington takes focus from what’s lost to what’s gained. Mindset is a muscle so the more you use it the stronger it gets. Now whenever something bad happens she looks for the opportunity. She now recovers faster having been through several traumatic experiences. That's not to minimise the feelings but to focus on there being something good on the other side. Having a sense of purpose gives meaning to the challenge you are experiencing.

Many senior executives have feet of clay. They don't have character but have been over promoted, have a good network set and strong political acumen.  Carrington feels there used to be two separate personas  - the personal and professional. The pandemic changed this with zoom calls providing a window into people’s lives so the two personas came together.  She also thinks the pandemic showed peoples authenticity and vulnerability so a lack of vulnerability and authenticity in executives are red flags. Some people are never going to share their emotions but are able to show empathy and meet people where they are and this willingness to acknowledge things will impact workplaces positively.

You can find out more about Carrington at www.carrington-smith.com where you can download the first chapter of her latest book Blooming free.

You can purchase the book at Blooming: Finding Gifts in the Shit of Life

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Overcome adversity and build resilience

Rob Swymer is a seasoned sales executive of over 40 years who embodies a servant leadership mindset. He leads his teams with empathy and applies the lessons learned from his adversity to help others build resilience and thrive, not only in business, but in their personal lives as well.  Working in sales can help develop so many life skills and Rob feels that at some point everyone should both work in sales and public facing roles.  Both can help with building the human connection, developing trust and being authentic whilst doing it. Rob feels that people’s perception of salespeople is not good. His take is that we’re here to serve and make people lives better in the long run, no matter what you’re selling.

Communication is at the heart of the human condition – communicating authentically is the best way to be your best self. Rob feels that authenticity is the ability to be yourself wherever you are and whoever you’re with. But with this comes vulnerability. Vulnerability comes through adversity and adversity builds resilience but if you are vulnerable enough to talk about your adversity then you will make a massive impact on the people you touch or meet. The human connection will be very strong. It needs a very adult form of relationship to build trust and be vulnerable – authenticity based on vulnerability is a very adult concept that does not work for all cultures, places or times. Some things translate and others don't.

Vulnerability, authenticity and adversity are a set of skills. Rob believes that resilience is something you learn and build from the events in your life. He grew up in adversity and had severe learning disabilities so had to navigate through these. He learned to adapt and practice self-care. When he was ten he was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and was bullied at school and in later years struggled with alcohol addiction which led to suicidal thoughts and depression. At 23 he learnt he had Keratoconus and needed a cornea transplant. Then eight years ago his wife of 32 years suffered a brain aneurysm. Rob’s life changed at that moment but looking back he feels that events and adversity stacking really prepared him for when lost his wife.

A year after his wife died Rob moved back to Atlanta. His friends kept him busy and one friend focused on his health and wellness. He a while he realised that their relationship might become something more so he went to his two boys to ask them what they thought. They said ask her out so they went on a proper date, their relationship blossomed and three years later they got married. They now have a blended family and Rob feels it is a wonderful ending to a tragic event, that the rise is always sweeter than the fall.

Rob believes our internal voice influences every thought, belief, and action. He used this model to move forward. In reality the internal voice is louder than any external voice you can hear. He thinks you need to start with mindset. If you get the mindset right on a daily basis or however often you need to check and with the inner voice in check as well there is nothing you cant achieve. 20% - 30% of people don't have an inner voice but even if you don't have an internal monologue you can learn the process to bring out your internal voice.

Rob also lives a life of gratitude but feels you need to go out to find happiness. You don't wait to be happy, you find the enjoyment and mine the pleasure saying that whatever situation you’re in you’ll find something to be grateful for.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more at robswymer.com His new book is Surrender to Your Adversity,