“It’s lonely at the top” may be more than a familiar saying. Leaders often feel lonely, even on days that are filled with interactions. Status differences, confidentiality requirements, and expectations to appear strong all can make genuine connections difficult. Loneliness can be temporary, such that leaders may feel well connected on some workdays and lonelier on others. New research suggests that the consequences of these lonely days may not stop at the office door but can carry over into home life and even contribute to how lonely leaders feel the next day.
In an article published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Nieberle et al. (2025) examined whether daily fluctuations in loneliness affect how leaders approach their responsibilities at work and their relationships at home and whether identities outside work could help protect them from these effects.
In Study 1, the researchers followed 174 UK managers across two working weeks, collecting more than 4,000 daily survey responses. On days when managers felt lonelier than usual, they reported greater withdrawal from their leadership responsibilities. They were more likely to let their minds wander and disengage from tasks and tried to minimize interactions with their employees. These consequences did not stop when managers left work. Both forms of withdrawal at work—task related and relational—were associated with greater psychological withdrawal from family and friends that evening. This withdrawal at home subsequently predicted more loneliness during the next workday, creating a cycle in which leaders’ loneliness and withdrawal could reinforce one another across work and home.
Study 2 provided complementary experimental evidence. In a separate sample of 185 UK managers, leaders experiencing temporary loneliness reported greater withdrawal from both their leadership tasks and their relationships with followers. The experiment also tested a more optimistic possibility that feeling lonely might motivate leaders to reconnect with other people. It did not. Instead, loneliness was associated with less relational engagement with followers.
The findings suggest a self-reinforcing pattern. Loneliness may prompt leaders to conserve their depleted psychological resources by withdrawing. In turn, withdrawing can reduce opportunities for the meaningful interactions that might otherwise restore connection, allowing loneliness to persist across work and home.
Importantly, the research highlights a protective factor: A strong family identity could partially disrupt the negative cycle of leader loneliness. Leaders with a highly salient family identity, meaning that close relationships with family and friends were an important part of who they are, were less likely to carry the negative consequences of loneliness from work into their home lives. Their family identity appeared to help them transition into home relationships after a difficult workday, which also interrupted its negative effect on the next day.
Organizations should recognize leader loneliness as a workplace issue, as greater awareness can help reduce stigma. Leadership development should adopt a “whole-person” approach by recognizing that leaders’ identities, relationships, and resources outside work affect how they function professionally. Leaders themselves may benefit from deliberately investing in family relationships, friendships, community involvement, and other nonwork identities rather than relying on work as their primary source of connection. Interventions also could help leaders recognize how resources gained at home can support recovery and be carried into their work, benefiting both their well-being and leadership effectiveness.