3 Subconscious But Deadly Reasons Most Leaders Have Few Friends

You’ve heard it. Probably said it.

It’s lonely at the top.

It’s an experience many leaders have felt, including me in seasons.

Why is that?

Well, leadership can be confusing.

You go from being just one of the guys or girls to being a ‘leader’ or ‘boss.

Leadership brings with it its own set of frustrations and challenges.

You’re never exactly sure what you can say to whom.

I have wrestled with friendship in leadership, but at this point feel fortunate to be surrounded by great friends locally and all over the place. Geography isn’t a barrier anymore.

Today I want to share 3 reasons why a lot of leaders struggle to make and keep friends (and why I did), as well as some action you can take.

But first I want to share the real reason…the reason underneath all the reasons.

You might not like it, but I think it’s true.

The Real Reason You Don’t Have Many Friends As a Leader Is…

You made a decision not to have friends.

That’s right. It’s as simple as that.

Somewhere along the line you decided not to have friends.

You might have done this sub-consciously. Or it might have been a decision.

I remember the first time in my life I decided to stop making friends.

I lived in the same community from when I was 3 until I was 8. I made some great friends. Best friends.

When my parents told me we were moving, I wanted to pull the for sale sign off our front lawn.

We moved 30 minutes away and I made some new friends and a new best friend, Andrew.

18 months after that move, we moved again—this time 5 hours away.

I remember going to my new school and thinking “I’m not going to make any close friends. We’ll just move again.”

Big mistake.

Although we did switch houses, I stayed with those same kids all through elementary school and high school. But throughout those years, I never threw myself as deeply into those relationships as I could have.

I made a choice.

And early into ministry, I found myself making a similar choice.

Leadership can make leaders lonely.

And I think ministry in even more inherently confusing because its such a strange combination of faith, life and work (something I wrote about here).

So glad that this time, I caught it.

The real reason most leaders don’t have many friends is because they decided to stop making them.

So Why Is That? The 3 Main Reasons Leaders Decide to Stop Making Friends

Maybe you never said “I’m not going to make any friends” out loud…or even to yourself. But these reasons will push you to make that decision even subconsciously.

But here’s the cool part: once you’re aware of why you do something, you’re freed to stop doing it.

Here are the 3 main reasons I think many of us in leadership stop making friends, even if we’ve never consciously realized we did this:

1. You don’t know how to handle people treating you like the boss.

I’ve seen this happen to many people as they step into leadership.

They’re used to being one of the guys or one of the girls. They get invited to all the parties, get invited to hang out after work and all the things that come with friendship.

But then they move into staff or into some position of leadership only to discover that they’re not always invited anymore.

And people treat them differently.

That’s normal. You’re the boss. You’re the leader.

People will treat you differently.

So how do you handle this?

Well, you could try to be the cool boss…but that has its limits and at times gets a bit creepy.

Why not try this: realize that although people will treat you differently, you can still take a genuine, personal interest in them.

Be on their side.

Put your own desires aside and simply care about the people you lead.

You’ll be amazed at how that takes the funk out of the air. You might even get invited to the occasional party. 🙂

2. You’ve been burned, and now you don’t want to trust.

This is probably the most common reason leaders don’t have many friends…and it’s the most serious.

The reality is you probably did get burned. Even if you owned your ‘piece’ of the problem, people will mistreat you. That’s life.

But now you have a choice.

Will you trust again, or will you keep your heart and life closed for fear of getting burned again?

The truth is you need to trust again. You really do.

Just because one person (or ten people) burned you doesn’t mean everyone will.

So ask yourself: am I going to let one person ruin everyone for me?

If your heart has hardened as a result of being in leadership, I wrote this post to help your heart find new life.

And in my next post, I’ll blog about how to tell who you can trust as a leader.

3. You’re not sure what you say to people around you.

If you’re struggling with what you feel you can say to the people around you…good for you.

It’s a natural and appropriate struggle as a leader.

You shouldn’t betray confidences.

You shouldn’t tell everyone everything.

You should be careful what you say to whom.

But because this is inherently complex and sometimes confusing, most leaders who want to end up honouring their position and the people around them fall into the trap of telling no one anything.

They bottle it up. Until it they can’t handle it anymore.

Just because you can’t tell everyone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell someone.

Just because not everyone needs to know doesn’t mean someone doesn’t need to know.

You just need to tell the right people.

Here’s how I do it and how many leaders I respect do it:

1. Develop a small inner circle with whom you can discuss every issue. This is true organizationally and personally. I wrote about how to do that here. I have curated a circle of friends and leaders around me who, between them, know pretty much every detail of my life and all the issues we’re processing as a team. The elders, key staff and a few friends and mentors form this circle in my life. My sincere hope would be that every leader would develop one.

2. Find peers who understand what you’re going through. I also have some friendships with peers who understand my world. They get what it’s like to lead a church our size, to write, to be a dad and husband…and I’ll talk to them about my frustrations, my inner struggles and issues in the same way that they talk to me about theirs.

Put This All Together And…

You will discover it’s more than possible to have great friendships.

Maybe you made a bad decision early on in leadership or life…but you can reverse it. You can. (I did.)

You can hold dinner parties for people you lead realizing you won’t feel the pressure to talk about things you shouldn’t really talk about…because you’ve processed them with your inner circle and with peers.

You will discover that you can trust people and that even though things have changed since you became a leader, things can still be great.