Most of you are accustomed to my writing about parents and children. So, my blog today may come a bit as a surprise. Apart from an intense passion I have towards work with families, I have a second love; the world of work. For the last six years I have invested considerably in my own development within the field of HR. I have had the fortune to learn awesome information, meet fantastic individuals and observe a number of different organisations operating their own unique systems and practices. Along the way, I’ve developed a number of interests within this area and today I would like to talk about one of those; leadership.
I will not presume to be able to give the readers a comprehensive text about the subject. Alas, there are fully fledged degrees for this. What I want to focus on today is the reality of loneliness within a leadership position. My title is inspired by my experience of a number of people in positions of senior management, who have so commonly suggested how lonely they feel. This is an idea which is so accepted that it is frequently mentioned candidly in many training sessions. But why is this so?
From the way I understand organisations, I can see that most organisations (if not all) have some form of organi-structure. Although these vary in character, but most organisations have a structure of hierarchy which organises authority levels and delegation of tasks within the organisations. Most of them operate on the premise of a ladder, which would metaphorically imply that there are entry level positions on one end and directorships on the other. As I said, some organisations operate a flatter managerial structure, but in general I observe that most companies segregate positions in order to clearly separate work to be done. A part of this structure would be people, who have authority, to lead, direct and make important decisions.
Steve Libreri is a social worker and parent coach within Willingness. He offers parent coaching and social work sessions. He can be contacted on steve@willingness.com.mt.