What Happens When the Leader Needs Support?

We talk endlessly about leaders supporting their employees. We talk considerably less about who supports the leader when they’re the one having a difficult day.

Good leaders are expected to notice when somebody is struggling. They should check in with their teams, create psychologically safe workplaces, manage workloads, recognise burnout, respond with empathy and make sure people know where to turn when they need help.

All of that matters. But there is an interesting gap in the conversation about workplace wellbeing. While leaders are frequently taught how to look after everybody else, we spend much less time asking a fairly obvious question: who is looking after them?

Being senior doesn’t make somebody immune to stress, grief, financial worries, relationship problems, exhaustion, anxiety or simply having a terrible week. Leadership doesn’t remove the ordinary difficulties of being human. It can simply make it harder to admit when those difficulties are affecting you.

When you’re expected to be the calm one

Leadership often comes with an unspoken expectation that you will be the person who remains steady when everybody else is worried. When something goes wrong, people look towards you for reassurance. When there is uncertainty, you’re expected to provide direction. When somebody is upset, you’re supposed to listen. When the organisation is under pressure, you’re expected to have a plan.

Sometimes you do. Sometimes you’re just as worried as everybody else.

The difficulty is that leaders don’t always feel they have permission to say that. You might be concerned that showing uncertainty will worry your team, undermine confidence or make people question whether you are capable of handling the situation. So you absorb the pressure, give everybody else the reassuring version and carry the less reassuring version around privately.

Do that occasionally and it’s probably part of leadership. Do it continuously and it can become exhausting.

The higher you go, the fewer people you can talk to

Leadership can be surprisingly lonely.

An employee having a difficult time might speak to their manager. A manager might speak to their director. But what happens when you’re the person at the top?

Some problems can’t appropriately be discussed with employees. You may know about financial pressures, redundancies, legal issues, confidential staffing matters or strategic decisions that aren’t ready to be shared. Even when confidentiality isn’t an issue, you may hesitate to tell your team how worried you are because you don’t want your anxiety to become theirs.

That can leave leaders surrounded by people all day while still feeling as though they have nobody they can really talk to.

And being listened to is important even when the person listening can’t solve the problem.

Supporting everyone else takes something from you

Listening to people, managing conflict, dealing with complaints, making difficult decisions and supporting employees through challenging periods all require emotional energy.

Good leadership involves caring about people. But caring isn’t an unlimited resource.

You can spend an entire day being patient, reassuring, thoughtful and composed for everybody around you, then arrive home with very little emotional capacity left for yourself or the people waiting there.

This can be particularly relevant in health and social care, where leaders may also be operating in environments involving illness, safeguarding concerns, workforce shortages, distressed families and significant responsibility for the wellbeing of others.

Supporting people is meaningful work. It can also be tiring work. Leaders need somewhere to put some of that weight too.

You don’t need to tell your team everything

There is sometimes a strange assumption that authentic leadership means sharing everything you’re feeling. It doesn’t.

Leaders are allowed to have boundaries, and there will always be information that isn’t appropriate to share widely. Your employees don’t need a running commentary on every worry keeping you awake or every problem happening in your personal life.

But there is a big difference between maintaining appropriate boundaries and pretending nothing ever affects you.

Sometimes simply saying, “It’s been a difficult week,” is enough. Leaders don’t have to perform invulnerability in order to inspire confidence.

In fact, appropriately acknowledging that you’re human can sometimes make it easier for other people to be honest too.

Build support before you desperately need it

One of the worst times to start looking for support is when you’re already completely overwhelmed.

A strong support network for a leader might include several different people because no single person needs to provide everything. You might have another leader who understands the realities of running an organisation, a mentor who can offer perspective, a professional adviser for specialist problems and friends or family who couldn’t care less about this quarter’s targets and simply care about you.

Peer relationships can be particularly valuable. Talking to somebody carrying similar responsibilities can immediately remove the need to explain why something feels difficult.

Sometimes you need advice. Sometimes you need somebody to challenge your thinking. And sometimes you need to say, “I’ve had an absolutely awful day,” and have somebody respond without requiring you to turn it into a leadership lesson.

Know the difference between business support and personal support

Not every difficult feeling requires a business solution.

If you’re worried about cash flow, speaking to your accountant or finance team may help. If you’re dealing with an employment issue, professional HR or legal advice might remove some uncertainty. If you’re struggling with a strategic decision, a mentor, board member or experienced peer may provide another perspective.

But sometimes the business problem isn’t really the whole problem.

Perhaps you’re exhausted. Perhaps you’ve been under pressure for months. Perhaps something difficult is happening at home while you’re simultaneously trying to lead at work. Perhaps you’re simply not coping as well as you normally do.

That’s when support may need to be about you, rather than the organisation.

Depending on what you’re experiencing, that might mean speaking to somebody you trust, using an employee assistance programme if one is available, talking to a coach or seeking appropriate professional support.

You don’t have to turn every personal struggle into another management problem to solve.

Stop treating asking for help as a failure of leadership

Leaders can become very good at being needed.

Being the person with the answer can become part of your identity. People bring you problems and you solve them. They ask for decisions and you make them. They need reassurance and you provide it.

Then one day you’re the person who needs something. That reversal can feel surprisingly uncomfortable.

But asking for support doesn’t cancel out your competence. Delegating something because your capacity is stretched doesn’t mean you’re incapable of doing it. Telling somebody you trust that you’re struggling doesn’t suddenly make you less qualified to lead.

There is a considerable difference between being responsible and believing you must personally carry every responsibility alone.

Put yourself somewhere on the wellbeing agenda

Leaders often have detailed conversations about employee wellbeing while barely considering their own.

They’ll approve flexible working for somebody who is exhausted, then work through their own holiday. They’ll encourage employees to take proper lunch breaks while eating at their desk. They’ll tell somebody to switch off for the evening while checking their own emails in bed.

It is worth occasionally applying the advice you give everybody else to yourself.

If a member of your team told you they hadn’t slept properly for weeks, were constantly worried, couldn’t switch off and felt completely overwhelmed, would you tell them to just keep going? Probably not.

So be careful about creating a different wellbeing standard for yourself simply because you’re the leader.

Sometimes you need more than a weekend off

There will be periods when leadership is unusually demanding and feeling temporarily overwhelmed doesn’t necessarily mean anything is seriously wrong. A difficult month, major project, organisational change or personal situation can understandably leave you depleted.

But if you’re persistently struggling, regularly unable to sleep, feeling unable to cope, withdrawing from people, losing enjoyment in things you normally value or finding that stress is significantly affecting everyday life, don’t assume you simply need to become more resilient.

It may be time to seek proper support.

Leadership wellbeing shouldn’t only be discussed when somebody reaches breaking point. Getting help earlier can be far easier than trying to recover once you’ve spent months convincing yourself that you’re fine.

Leaders need somewhere to lean too

The strongest leaders aren’t people who never struggle. They’re people who recognise that leadership doesn’t exempt them from being human.

You can be capable and tired. Successful and overwhelmed. Confident about the direction of your organisation and uncertain about something happening in your own life. You can be the person everybody relies upon and still occasionally need somebody yourself.

We should absolutely continue asking leaders to support their people. But perhaps workplace wellbeing conversations need to include one more question.

Who’s supporting the person everybody else turns to?

Keep looking after you

Wellbeing looks different for everyone, and sometimes the most useful thing is simply finding the right information at the right time. Explore more from Daily Round with our dedicated Women’s Health, Men’s Wellbeing and Wellbeing for Leaders sections, or head to the Leaders Library for our latest book recommendations, ideas and inspiration for life in and outside work.