Face your fears: Isolation

For the leaders I coach, navigating burnout often means navigating their fear— fear that runs so deep they no longer see how it’s undermining them. Psychiatrist Irvin Yalom names four such fears. One is isolation.

Human beings are social creatures. We need other people to survive. For that reason, feeling isolated or cut off from others can fill us with dread.

Isolation is different from simply going it alone, which is an intentional decision that helps us reground and recharge. Isolation, on the other hand, is imposed upon us. We’re shunned, shamed, rejected, thrown away, abandoned.

That lack of control is what makes isolation so stressful and harmful to our emotional and physical health. According to the Surgeon General of the United States, Vivek Murthy, chronic loneliness is like smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

So it’s understandable that we would fear isolation from others. And it’s also understandable that we might lead our lives to minimize that isolation.

And perhaps it’s also understandable that our fear of isolation might be driving dynamics that make our organizations a toxic mess.

Isolation is especially challenging for leaders who also happen to be executives. Because the higher you go in your organization, the fewer peers you have to share your burdens.

If we don’t deal with our fear of isolation, if we ignore or suppress it, we can develop habits that are toxic for ourselves and others.

For instance, we might overstep healthy boundaries in working relationships. We may look for or even try to create organizations that promise to be our “families”—even when we know workplaces can never truly give us the warmth and attachment families provide.

We might not speak up or challenge the status quo out of the fear—often justified—that taking a stand will threaten the relationships we’ve learned to rely on. Which means we can become complicit in things we know are wrong.

We might tend to stick with roles, organizations, or working relationships we think are “comfortable” even though we know staying put is holding us back—or, even worse, continuing to expose us to a toxic environment.

So if we are going to lead well, we need to contend with our fear of isolation.

The first step, Yalom says, is acknowledging the fear and learning to notice it when we see it in ourselves and others. How can we learn to hold our fear?

Next, we need to become compassionately curious. What’s triggering that fear? And more important, what is it leading us to do—or not do?

Third, we need to resource ourselves. How can you regroup and reconnect with yourself and others?

Finally, we need to push on that fear gently. How might we choose differently? How can we lead without being defined by our fear?

Over time, we can build our capacity to manage our fears and help others do the same. Coaching can help. Book your free Discovery Session here.