#332: It's Not Supposed to Be Lonely at the Top

Summary

Podcast Summary: Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast

Episode #332: It's Not Supposed to Be Lonely at the Top
Release Date: February 20, 2025
Hosts: Perry Holly and Chris Cody

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode addresses the common belief that leadership—especially at the “top”—is inherently lonely. Perry Holly and Chris Cody challenge this narrative, explain why loneliness at the top is a sign of ineffective leadership, and offer actionable strategies (guided by Maxwell’s Five Levels of Leadership) to build meaningful, productive relationships at every level of an organization. The hosts share personal stories, coaching experiences, and provide practical tips for leaders who want to foster stronger connections and cultivate high-performing, connected teams.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Myth of Loneliness at the Top

[01:28] Perry Holly: Shares a story about a coaching client—a CEO—who claims, “it is lonely at the top,” highlighting how this perception is widespread but misguided.

• John Maxwell’s Principle: If you’re lonely at the top, you’re not doing it right.
• The Core Reason: Often, loneliness stems not from the position itself, but from an intentional or unintentional isolation from the team.

2. Barriers to Connection

[02:27] Perry Holly: Recounts a CEO who doesn’t trust or like his senior team—rooted in outdated beliefs that leaders should keep their distance to maintain authority or avoid uncomfortable situations like firing people.

• Personality vs. Position: Loneliness can be a result of personality habits, not just positional demands.
• Influence is Personal: "You can't really build influence at a distance, and influence is a little personal." – Perry Holly [04:25]

3. Leadership Requires Relationship

• Developing Leaders Around You:
  • A core leadership duty is to grow and develop leaders rather than rule over subordinates.
  • “If you cannot grow more leaders, or if you are not growing your leaders, then it may be lonely at the top.” – Chris Cody [04:31]
• The Five Levels Approach:
  • Level 1: Positional—avoid relying merely on your title.
  • Higher levels: Require relationships, permission, and influence.

4. Teamwork is Essential

[05:22] Chris Cody:

• “No one ever gets to the top alone. It takes a team.”
• Achieving together is far more fulfilling than isolated success.

5. Personal Growth Through Coaching

[06:00] Perry Holly: Coaches the CEO to build genuine relationships with direct reports.

• The senior VPs perceived the CEO as a “level one leader”—someone who just gives orders and doesn’t care about people.
• Once intentional relationships began, walls came down, trust grew, and the culture improved.

6. Culture of Leadership vs. Team Building

[08:10] Chris Cody:

• Don’t just strive for a functional team—build a culture of leadership so that even as team members change, the positive culture persists.
• “When the team comes into the culture and it’s one of leadership, then it’s not very lonely inside that organization.” [08:56]

7. Success, Failure, and Human Connection

[09:54] Perry Holly:

• Both extreme success and failure can cause leaders to isolate themselves—out of pride or shame.
• A balanced, authentic connection with others is key to avoiding this unhealthy separation.

8. Leadership is the People Business

[10:36] Chris Cody:

• Every business is a people business; you must genuinely like, care for, and engage with people to lead effectively.
• “If you don’t like people, you’re going to have a very difficult time leading.” – Perry Holly [12:04]

9. The Law of Significance

[12:09] Perry Holly:

• “One is too small a number to achieve greatness.” (John Maxwell)
• If your vision can be achieved alone, it’s not big enough—real achievement requires involving others.

10. Celebrating Team Success

[12:52] Chris Cody:

• Reminisces on how John Maxwell always introduces colleagues as people he “works with,” emphasizing a collaborative culture.
• Achieving with others—no matter the setting—feels ten times more rewarding than solo achievement.

11. Even ‘Individual’ Success is Team Success

[14:48] Chris Cody:

• Uses sports analogies (golfers, coaches): Even lone champions rely on a team, from trainers to caddies, reinforcing that “lonely at the top” is a myth even in individual pursuits.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “If you’re lonely at the top, you’re not doing it right.” – Repeated John Maxwell principle, paraphrased by Perry Holly [01:55]
• “You can’t really build influence at a distance, and influence is a little personal.” – Perry Holly [04:25]
• “If you cannot grow more leaders or if you are not growing your leaders, then it may be lonely at the top.” – Chris Cody [04:31]
• “No one ever gets to the top alone. It takes a team.” – Chris Cody [05:22]
• “If you don’t like people, you’re going to have a very difficult time leading.” – Perry Holly [12:04]
• “One is too small a number to achieve greatness.” – John Maxwell, quoted by Perry Holly [12:09]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:27] – The CEO’s “lonely at the top” confession
• [02:27] – Discussion of generational beliefs about leader-employee relationships
• [04:25] – Influence can’t happen at a distance
• [05:22] – Achieving with a team is essential
• [06:00] – Coaching a CEO to build trust & relationships
• [08:10] – Building a culture of leadership vs. just a team
• [09:54] – Success and failure can both breed isolation
• [10:36] – The necessity of genuinely liking people
• [12:09] – The law of significance explained
• [14:48] – Sports as an analogy: even solo winners are team-dependent

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Key Takeaways & Action Steps

For Leaders Feeling Lonely at the Top:

• Examine if you’re relying too much on formal authority rather than building relationships.
• Avoid isolation by intentionally investing in your team’s growth and development.
• Work to create a true “leadership culture,” not just a group of people working together.
• Remember, success—no matter how big or small—is more meaningful and enjoyable when shared.

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The tone throughout remains authentic, conversational, and practical, echoing the “servant leadership” ethic and engaging humor that characterize Maxwell Leadership content. This episode is both a call to self-awareness and an encouragement to cultivate connection, emphasizing that real leadership is never a solitary endeavor.

Transcript

[Chris Cody]

Foreign.

[Perry Holly]

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I'm Perry Holly, a Maxwell leadership facilitator and coach.

[Chris Cody]

And I'm Chris Cody, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. As we get started today, I want to encourage you to go to Maxwell leadership.com podcast. Click on this podcast. There you can fill out a form and you want to learn more about 5 levels, which this is ultimately what this entire podcast is built off of. Some 332 as of today.

[Perry Holly]

This is 332. Yes.

[Chris Cody]

I. We were. I was with the a CEO and an executive team just recently, and they're like, how many podcasts have you done? I said, you mean how many is Perry written? I was like, it's over 300. So if you want just to leave us a note, a comment, a thought about leadership and how we can help serve you, whether it's you and your team on site through training or coaching, we would love to be able to do that. You can find that form there.

[Perry Holly]

If you have an idea for number 333, that would be helpful.

[Chris Cody]

That would be very helpful for people, Perry, not Chris, but. So go ahead and do that. Well, today's topic is titled it's not Supposed to be Lonely at the Top. Do you feel lonely in this podcast.

[Perry Holly]

After I'm just calling you out?

[Chris Cody]

Yeah. You're lonely.

[Perry Holly]

Yeah. No, I'm telling you, I was on a coaching call. It's been a while since it happened. But. There was a but. It came up recently. It's got me thinking about it again. But this first call with a CEO of a large company on the east coast, and I was getting to know him, we were talking and going back and forth, and I just was at the point, I said, tell me about your leadership. He goes, oh, I wish I could. You could. You're on YouTube. You can see me.

[Chris Cody]

But.

[Perry Holly]

Oh, Perry, it is lonely at the top. It is so lonely at the top. And I hear John Maxwell in my. Oh, yeah, my ear. Because John said, if you're lonely at the top, you're not doing it right.

[Chris Cody]

That's right.

[Perry Holly]

And so I. I took a pause and I just said, but I can't say that it's first call. I didn't want to get fired right away. I like to get fired over time. But I said, well, I. On your website, I see you have seven senior Vice presidents. What about them? And he goes, yeah, I don't really like them. I don't trust them. I thought, well, I. I know why. It's lonely at the top, so.

[Chris Cody]

And then you're also going, hey, thanks, Chris, for connecting me with this CEO.

[Perry Holly]

I thought, now I know where the next 12 months of calls are going to go. Yeah, we can talk about this. But what do you think about. Have you ever been lonely at the top? Do you feel this. Is this a common thing, or.

[Chris Cody]

Well, I think it's funny because just today, before we record this podcast, I made a comment about, at times, I will protect my team from certain pace, certain situations. And I. And as you're sitting there explaining that, and I'm beginning to think about this, I'm going, when you do that, it does make you feel lonely at times when you're doing that. But at the end of the day, I think that I don't necessarily feel that way because I have a team that I. I trust. I trust the leadership team. I think that's key in, in not feeling that. And what he said, right. Which was, yeah, I don't like him, and, and I don't trust him. And so that's why he feels that way.

[Perry Holly]

Yeah.

[Chris Cody]

Yeah.

[Perry Holly]

Well, I, I did, you know, we. We did develop a pretty good relationship. And I asked him more about it and it. But he. He said that he was always taught coming up as a leader, and I wonder if this would be generational in nature because he's. He's closer to my age than yours, but he said, I was brought up to not build close relationships with the people that work for me. That. Because you might, you know, I don't want to be close with them because I might have to fire them or I might have to do, you know, have to have a difficult conversation. And I really don't want to develop a friendship with you because I might. I have to be your boss. And that he said, if I do develop a relationship with them, if I have a close relationship, they'll bring me their dirty laundry. And he was really nervous about people bringing their personal issues or their personal challenges to him. And I thought, well, this is really, kind of makes it kind of understandable, is that he's keeping distance. I've heard John talk about that in his early career. He said he was actually taught the same thing, stay away. But then as you talk about what is leadership is influence. You can't really build influence at a distance. And influence is a little personal.

[Chris Cody]

It is personal. And we were Talking a couple of weeks ago on one of our podcasts about filling your leadership pipeline, I would encourage you something that you're working on as a leader or have a deficit and go back and listen to that and give you some thoughts and ideas around how to do that. But that is one of your main jobs as a leader, as we talked about there was to grow the leaders around you. And if you cannot grow more leaders or if you are not growing your leaders, then it may be lonely at the top, which may have been one of as you began to uncover where he may have very competent leadership team, but he was not developing them. And then he felt lonely at the top. All right, so the truth about the top.

[Perry Holly]

Yeah. Talked about I'm not there. Tell me what it's like.

[Chris Cody]

I'm not there either. But as you talked about John, and in your, that voice is in your head and him saying, you know, lonely at the top. Yeah. No one ever gets to the top alone. Right. It takes a team. We could give you a ton of analogies and stories about that. Making it there is essential to taking others there. You have to work together as a team. You have to have people with you. And then finally taking people to the top is more fulfilling than arriving there alone. To be able just to celebrate together when you achieve something and. And you get on top is what makes it all worth it.

[Perry Holly]

Yeah, I totally agree. And this leader that I'm speaking about, his loneliness was not a positional issue. It was a personality issue. And he and I worked on that mindset in our coaching over the next months. And he actually was very pleased. When he invited me, he goes, you know what? I'd like for you to work with my seven senior VPs. And so we started as a group and then a little some one on ones after that, but I got to work with those seven. And then it was interesting to hear their perception of him in a group call as they defined him as that level one leader. He was not. He didn't have a relationship with us. He didn't. He didn't reach out to us. He didn't care about us. He just wanted us to do our jobs and that, that he, he didn't value them as the people they were. And so a lot of the value that we did in this, in this coaching was he opened up and began to build relationship with them. They of course, were not trusting of that. They didn't know where it was coming from. Then they got introduced to our coaching and that opened up, hey, we should all be More relational. And so seeing the bonds between the seven and then back to him, started to tear down these wal. It doesn't have to be lonely at the top. We can actually, if you just follow these five levels of influence, these five levels of leadership. You say, yeah, I have the title, I'm the CEO, but I need to have relationship with these people so that they'll know the three questions that I'm trying to help them, I care about them and they can trust me. And now we can build this.

[Ryan Leake]

Hey, everybody, Ryan Leake here and I've got some exciting news for you. Data Grow is just a few weeks away and it's happening on March 19th in Orlando, Florida. And I cannot wait to see you there. I'll be talking about my new book, how to work with complicated People. And let me tell you, this message has the power to change the way you lead and live. And it's not just me. John C. Maxwell is going to be in the building. Tim Tebow, Stephanie Chong, Jesse Itzler, and an amazing lineup of speakers will all be there pouring into you. But here's the thing, seats are filling up fast. So if you haven't registered yet, now is the time, don't wait. Make the decision today to invest in your personal growth. I'll see you, my friend, in Orlando, Florida on March 19th. Let's grow together.

[Chris Cody]

I, like you talked about positional leader. It goes right back to what we were talking about, the five levels of leadership. And so this, this is something that Perry and I talk about often and it breaks our heart, is that the organizations around the world that we actually travel to serve, so many leaders are stuck at level one. They just stay right there. They're a positional leader. And so they probably do feel like it is lonely at the top. And so let's look at it this way. Let's say I do feel like I am lonely at the top. What can I do? Well, the five levels leadership is a great place to start. We'll just start. You need to understand that methodology, right? And at that is level one, where we want to encourage you to avoid the positional thinking, avoid the command and control, avoid the hey, because I said so, right? Begin to understand what do you need to be doing with your team to be able to increase your influence. Not just because you're not leading, just because the title on your chest. And I also want to encourage you about don't just think about building a P and L or a team or an organization. I want you to think about building a culture of leadership, and you can build a team. But, man, if you build a culture of leadership, the members of those teams are going to change in and out. Right? You think about some of the greatest coaches. We talk a lot about sports on this podcast, but NFL or even college football, and you look at it, and the culture lasts more than the team does. But when the team comes into the culture and it's one of leadership, then it's not very lonely in that side of that organization. No matter if you're the newest player on the team or if you're a coach that's been there forever.

[Perry Holly]

I think another thing you can do is just be real. There's some. There's some upsides and downsides of success and failure. And I thought if you're so enamored with your success, again, you're thinking, like, I'm doing it on my own, that you can look down on others, and that could cause, you know, them to pull back and stop associating with you. There's a. That can make some loneliness, but also, if you. If you have a failure, you're not succeeding, you're failing. That could be embarrassing, shameful. You know, other emotions rise and you pull back from that. So both extremes can fuel this. An unhealthy separation from others. I want to, you know, have a balanced view of success and failure so that. That I. I know that our success is together. And so I want to connect with you and go that level two and level three.

[Chris Cody]

Yep. Third, understand you're in the people business. Okay, let's just stop.

[Perry Holly]

Wait a minute.

[Chris Cody]

I'll be traveling around, and people, you know, you're on planes and airports. And for those of. Those of you that have been listening a long time, if you listen to us, you know, Perry likes to sit in airports or walk around airports and force people to smile at them. I at least try to have a conversation with them. And as we're traveling, hey, what do you do? What do you do? And talk about leadership development and what does that mean? And this, that. And I'm like, do you have people that work with you? Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, you're in the people business, and we can help you with your people. In essence, it doesn't matter. Your industry, doesn't matter what you're doing. We are all in the people business. So with that being said, let's just be honest here. We've got to like people. Yeah, we. We have to like people. Otherwise, you'll never add value to them. Now, you don't need to love all people. But you gotta have a little bit of like. And as John said, there's gotta be common ground somewhere. Even if it's 1%, go figure out what that. And be able to. To connect with them. And so now do this in the right way. We often talk about there's a fine line between manipulation and influence. It's the motive behind it. But make sure that you are in it to. For the motive of helping the people become better, bigger and more competent than they've ever been.

[Perry Holly]

Well, I've heard John say if you, if you don't like people, you're going to have a very difficult time leading.

[Chris Cody]

Yeah.

[Perry Holly]

Because. And you do need to love them. And you say love them. I don't even like them. But that's talking about love as an action, not love as a. I can't make you feel anything. But I, I can take actions like being kind, being patient, being, you know, selfless. Yeah. Another one, number four, I think it is, would be. You got to buy into this law of significance. John says the law of significance is that one is too small a number to achieve greatness. So if you are trying to fulfill your vision for your group, your team, your organization on your own, then your vision is too small. If it's something you can do by yourself, then it's not worth doing. But make it big and involve others and realize that one is too small a number. B, the law of significance happens when you involve others in the vision.

[Chris Cody]

Yeah. As I get ready to wrap up, this is something that has impacted me for a long time. I'll never forget early on in my career, John, you know, we'd be different places and he'd introduce me and he would never say that I work for him. He says, I work with Chris. And it was a small way back then of letting people know, like, we're a team. Like this is a culture of a team and that we're working on this and this is what we're trying to accomplish. And it's never just about him. Now, he may be setting the vision, but when we are putting boots to the ground and we're out there getting after it, it's about the team. And that just creates that team environment so that when we do accomplish whatever that vision is, that it's. We're all together at the top. As I finally just give you a couple thoughts and wrap up, I thought about this as I was thinking about the content today. I've accomplished some things personally and that's been a lot of fun, but man, When I accomplish things with other people and a team, it just is 10x the excitement level. Then I got to thinking about from a sports analogy, I started thinking about individual sports and I started thinking about professional golfers. And now more than ever, when a professional golfer wins something and they start talking to the press or whatever, now you hear them talking about their trainers and the Wii and and so there is not even individual sports that should be lonely at the top because it's a team environment. So just be aware of that and some of the things that Perry and I talked about and make sure you understand that you do have to like people to be in the leadership space.

[Perry Holly]

You want to carry your bag by yourself. You want to rake that trap on your own.

[Chris Cody]

That's right. You want to fly that plane, you want to make the hotel bed, whatever. Yeah, that's right.

[Perry Holly]

Great, great stuff, Chris. Well, thank you all. And it's a reminder if you would like the learner guide for this, learn about our offerings or learn about our other podcast offerings, you can do all that@maxwell leadership.com podcast. You can also leave us a question or a comment. And we love so much to hear from you and we're grateful that you would join us today. That's all from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

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