Nothing could be further from the truth. The real truth is this: if you’re a leader and you’re feeling lonely, you’re most certainly doing something wrong. I hate saying that so strongly but that is a fact.
You should absolutely not be lonely, you should be the most sought out person in your organization. Maybe not the most popular because authentic leadership is anything but a popularity contest, but your people should be seeking you out regularly with questions and ideas.
If you don’t have regular, daily conversations with the people you lead it could well be that you’re lacking real relationships with them. When a relationship isn’t present it becomes very hard for a leader to demonstrate that they care for and value the people they lead.
If your people get so much as a hint that you don’t care about them as people your opportunity to truly lead them will be lost.
Authentic leaders make building real relationships with their people one of their top priorities. They are intentional about it. They will literally schedule time into their day to “relationship build.” They get out their office and seek out the people they lead. Authentic leaders know that their success is completely dependent upon the success of the people they lead. Authentic leaders invest time with their people to ensure their people’s success. Authentic leaders celebrate the success of their people as much, or more, than their own.
If you’re a leader you should know that your people value a relationship with you as much as they value recognition, promotions and often, even pay.
That relationship doesn’t have to extend outside of the work environment but it does need to be robust enough for them to know, without a doubt, that they are valued for what they do and who they are.
A leader’s relationship with their people needs to be “real.” As a leader, you need to know something about the people you lead. You can’t lead someone effectively until you know something about them. You can’t demonstrate that you care about them unless you can first demonstrate that you actually know them…. as a person.
Some of the people who read this will think to themselves “I don’t have time for this relationship crap” and to you I would say this:
If you don’t have the time to build real relationships with your people then maybe, just maybe, you don’t have time to lead.