It can be lonely at the top for the CEO

Being the business owner or CEO in the corner office with the continual pressure and burden of making decisions is not exactly soothing.

The worst of loneliness sets in when tough decisions must be made, especially the ones that involve people.

As the person at the top, you have sole access to information and, therefore, you are responsible for the impact of any decision.

Not being able to discuss all of your reasons for arriving at a particular decision with the people it affects can be a difficult part of your role.

As the company leader, it is essential to set boundaries between self and staff and it is operating within these boundaries that can cause loneliness and isolation.

From working with many business owners and CEOs as a business and executive coach, I have heard a common comment from nearly all of these clients that "loneliness tends to sneak up from behind and grabs them before they realize it."

Their business life takes over from their personal life. Eventually there is no separation between the two, with loneliness then being felt in both situations. At this stage, the business owner or CEO may start to second guess why they are doing what they are doing. That can quickly lead to a deterioration of their own business performance.

Business owners and CEOs almost certainly started out with the best of intentions for their business:

n Grow the business and generate profitability.

n Provide opportunities and motivation to employees to meet business goals.

n Provide exemplary service to customers.

n Treat all temployees fairly.

However, one of the biggest challenges facing business owners and CEOs is to maintain their grasp of the reality that surrounds them.

They need to understand the effect of their own power and to maintain a balanced perspective as to how their decisions are viewed and interpreted, and the influence they wield because of their position.

Dependent on advisers

As the loneliness grows, there is a tendency for the owner or CEO to become more dependent on a small circle of people in the organization to turn to for advice and counsel.

The risk here is that the information available is limited and usually biased. This small ring of advisers tends to provide information the owner or CEO wants to hear so that they can stay in this group advising the owner or CEO.

More likely than not, this will lead to a flawed picture of the real business issues facing the company. As Machiavelli noted, flatterers abound because men are so easily pleased with their own qualities and are deceived by them.

The illusion, or perhaps delusion, of invulnerability can be a danger faced by owners or CEOs if they are not confronted by advisers who are willing to point out realities.

Denials and excuses

Unfortunately, many business owners or CEOs become more comfortable with being in denial about their loneliness as a business-restricting issue for the future success of the company.

Often when confronted with the reality of the need for outside counsel as a sounding board and as an accountability check on the owner's or CEO's decision-making processes, these leaders provide a number of typical responses that really are no more than denial or excuses:

n "I am the only person who can bring success to the company as I'm supposed to know how to solve this."

n "I cannot admit that I have a problem as that would make me appear to be incompetent or ignorant and not able to run the business."

n "I don't know anyone who can help me because they don't know my business well enough."

The question is, where do you find qualified and trusted advisers who can bring this support to deal with the loneliness of the business owner or CEO?

Business and executive coaching have been evolving rapidly over the past decade through the availability of intensive certification training schools. Business coaching focused specifically on the performance of the owner or CEO is designed to provide high-impact processes to help business people in leadership roles improve business and personal results in ways that can be sustained over time.

A testimonial from a CEO of a health-care system demonstrates how a business or executive coach can alleviate the loneliness at the top:

"I didn't hire you for technical business analysis because my management team could do that. I hired you because I needed someone to walk me through the pain that the change program was going to cause.

"I needed someone I could trust with confidentiality, independence and who would hold my feet to the fire to get the job done, who was going to support me with my board of directors and with my staff when the going got tough."

It is important that every business owner and CEO recognize that future success does not always follow past success.

It is easy for a business owner or CEO, based on their past success, to believe their own press that they are irreplaceable: "I am the only person who can bring success to this company."

Because they have built the business successfully in the past they can fall into the mindset of invulnerability stemming from their ego and their self-serving bias, creating their own loneliness.

Hence, every business owner and CEO should invite trusted advisers without vested interests within the company to provide them with objective challenges to their processes of decision making.

The advisers would also challenge the business owner or CEO to be accountable for the outcomes that will be consistent with the planned goals for the business.

Iain Macfarlane is the president and founder of BizCOACHING & Associates in Madison, a franchise of ActionCOACH Business Coaching. He was named "Coach of the Year 2005."