CEOs are surprise victims of the loneliness epidemic: ‘Your peers are gone, and you’re the only one left’

“Many CEOs and leaders you meet from the outside seem to lead exciting lives,” Matt Murray, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, told me recently. “But in real life many of them are not very functional human beings.” 

In the decades he spent with business leaders, Murray saw that “leadership is lonely, and management is lonely.” Some people spend their entire career climbing to the top only to realize that once there “your peers are gone, and you’re the only one left,” Murray said. Family is often the remaining pillar of support.   

Murray’s remarks rang true yesterday when the Fortune Connect community gathered for a learning session with Suneel Gupta, a tech entrepreneur and visiting professor at Harvard Medical School. He talked about the epidemic of loneliness in the U.S. and the anxiety felt by C-suite executives more specifically.

At least 40% of executives are thinking of leaving their job, in large part, because they lack the energy needed for the job and feel that they’re alone in tackling everyday challenges, Gupta said. Deloitte (which sponsors this newsletter) estimates an even higher share of executives—70%—“are seriously considering quitting for a job that better supports their well-being.”

Caring for employees’ mental well-being is an increasingly important task for HR departments, especially since the pandemic. But conversations like the ones I had with Murray and Gupta show that the topic needs to penetrate the corner office as well.

“The person that can have the biggest effect on our mental health is our boss,” Gupta said. If that person is struggling with poor mental health him- or herself, chances are they’re less equipped to help their employees. That pattern creates a trickle-down effect in which “less than 30% of the workforce are engaged in what they do, and more people are burning out than ever before,” Gupta said. 

What’s more, business leaders today are confronting crises—geopolitical conflicts, inflation, recessionary fears, technological disruption—that stretch over long periods of time, testing not just their mental strength but their mental stamina as well.

You can read more of Gupta’s analysis in his new book Everyday Dharma. And for more strategies for working smarter and living better, you can sign up for Well Adjusted, Fortune‘s newsletter on the topic.

More news below. 

Peter Vanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
@petervanham

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This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.