Executive Loneliness is not an easy topic to broach. Despite the wave of ‘woke’ culture and the general outspokenness that is being demonstrated in social media, there seems to be a lot of silence around executives and executive leaders being seen as isolated and lonely.
But, as Jonsson himself reveals, there's a stigma attached to executives who admit to being lonely and/or vulnerable. It also seemed brave to just bring this up. Hence, why we decided it was worth reviewing his book, which Nick published on Amazon himself. What we found was a heartwarming story behind his own personal struggles, Jonsson shows us that there is a way out.
Jonsson attempts to introduce the five steps one needs to take to overcome the pitfalls of loneliness and other negative traits that befall corporate leaders.
In the first part of the story, Nick outlines his own story as a male, expatriate executive in Asia, grappling with the many challenges he faced, both professionally and, inevitably, personally too. Nick’s struggles are borne alone, exacerbated by alcohol abuse and almost taking his life. However, a friend’s own senseless death gave him the opportunity to help others to heed and recover from loneliness . In fact, Nick does turn his life around (he participates in triathlons today, shown by posts in his LinkedIn feed) and is co-founder of Executives’ Global Network (EGN).
Nick follows up his heart-warming tale with his five recommendations (or principles), for our executives to overcome these challenges in their own workplaces and lives. He outlines these as:
Taking Stock
Asking for Help
Getting Healthy
Nurturing Healthy Relationships
Finding Your Purpose
We won’t go into detail. Reading it is sober and solemn but Jonsson’s tips are a matter-of-fact. They are exemplified by his own successes. There are no pretensions and he doesn’t try to ground his principles on clinical or psychological research. These come from the heart. He does include anecdotes from other individuals and regularly cites experts, but you could say this is cherry-picking. At times, the structure of the book suggests an attempt to also boost his profile, with related links to his media exposure being listed, instead of more emphasis on the subject matter (which we would’ve loved to see more of).
Vulnerability as a leadership strength has been consistently cited in recent years. But it's a topic that is still under the radar for most people, especially in many older, established corporations. In addressing executive loneliness, we at TBR believe Jonsson is breaking ground with a combination of vulnerability, courage and insights that are worthy of study. It may not sound stimulating nor is it something you'd reach for on bookshelves. But that's more of a by-product of the topic itself.
So, if any of you are feeling isolated by your work or just feel depressed for some reason, this book might resonate. It’s a totally subjective topic and we’ve withheld our usual editorial ratings at the end. Only those who suffer what Nick did, can relate to it. We hope they can also learn from his remarkable turn-around.