The Solitary Executive: Backstage

Mara (not her real name) led a company initiative for over a year, mostly alone. Her co-leaders took vacation the week of a final showcase. Her peers came to planning meetings expecting to be directed on every little task. Her management listened to Mara’s concerns, agreed there was a gap, and nothing changed.

The night before she presented to senior leadership, she was feeling the heaviness of it all, but then felt something break through. “I just talked to myself and said, you have no choice. This is your initiative. You know what you’re doing.” She watched a movie and went to bed. The next morning she walked in calm and structured, and the senior leaders loved it.

Two days later, she was still fueled by this energy.

This is what isolation looks like when it works well. The higher you go, the less people understand the decisions you’re making, and the more of the burden you carry for yourself. You can succeed in the spotlight and still come home feeling empty.

Resilience is less a personality trait than a discipline, and a lot of that discipline happens backstage. It shows up in where you go to recover, who you allow in there with you, and what you say to yourself when the lights go out.

1. Where You Go to Recover

Researchers who study recovery from work (Sabine Sonnentag’s research is a good place to start) separate actual recovery from things that only look like it. You can see the difference by asking two questions about your free time. How does it feel? And do you chose it intentionally or do you escape into it?

The Spotlight (Intention / Feels Drained) is the job itself, with its high-risk decisions and crisis management. It burns a lot of fuel. You can’t live here, but you have to go here regularly to lead.

The Green Room (Intention / Feels Energized) is where professionals go to prepare. The recovery research points to four things that restore people: mentally detaching from work, relaxing, doing something that stretches you, and having control over how you spend the time. This might look like a power walk or putting your phone in another room overnight.

The Cocoon (Escape / Feels Numbing) is doom-scrolling, retiring, or letting a third episode play by default. It seems like rest, but it fails to restore.

The Sugar Rush (Escape / Feels Energizing) is deceptive because it sits in the same column as the Green Room, and from the inside they might feel the same. Fully engaged multitasking, retail therapy, and gossiping with a colleague all give you a kick, but the high is short-lived. (Candy corn is a great metaphor.)

For many leaders, talking things out with a trusted colleague is the only ‘green room’ they have. It’s a good thing. Just note that the research on co-rumination has found that going over the same problem over and over again with someone can deepen both the friendship and the distress at the same time. Pay attention to how the conversation ends. Processing leaves you a little clearer about what’s next, even when you know that it’s going to be difficult. Sugar-rush venting might give you a jolt of justification telling you that you’re right, but it feels empty.

The Audit: Check your calendar outside of work hours. How much of it is Green Room? How much is Cocoon? Do you mistake a Sugar Rush for getting things done?

I worked with a senior manager who realized that his habit of scrolling through YouTube Shorts late at night was numbing him, and it was draining his mornings, too. Rather than focus on willpower, we designed a system where he shut off his phone at 10:15 PM and set aside a morning block for strategy. He later told me, “Morning time is different. Two hours then is worth more than two hours at night.” That is the difference between relief and restoration.

2. Who You Let Backstage

Isolation is one of the ways leaders burn out. Christina Maslach’s research names community as a sixth driver of burnout, alongside workload, control, reward, fairness, and values. Sheldon Cohen’s buffering hypothesis found that social support buffers the effect of stress, but only when it is the right kind of support.

The right kind, for a senior leader, is something called reality testing. You want one or two people who will help you see what your own brain is filtering out, and who know the difference between validating your feelings and colluding with your story. “Yeah, that’s hard” is validation. “Yes, you are the victim here” is collusion.

Mara lived the Green Room by watching a movie and falling asleep. What she didn’t have was anyone there with her before the showcase, and that’s what she’s building now. She calls these relationships it “silent power” because they let her lead without carrying everything alone.

Sometimes you have to provide a reality check to the people in leadership above you. One of my clients was known as the person who could launch any new website, anywhere, anytime. When he was asked to launch a remote location that would take a heavy toll on his family, his first instinct was to immediately say yes to protect that reputation. The isolation of leadership was telling him, “If I refuse, I lose my position.”

Instead, he went to his own leadership and asked for what he would need to make a sustainable yes. By articulating these real needs, he turned a blind obligation into a deal he chose. He stopped being the lone hero and became a partner in the decision.

3. What You Say to Yourself In THE GREEN ROOM

Most high achievers have a strong inner critic. It points out flaws and insists on improvement, which may useful if it motivates you (and often it doesn’t). At that point, self-criticism elicits a threat response. Your thinking shrinks, and the Cocoon starts to look very appealing.

Two questions can help. The first orders your thoughts. “Does this give me information I can use, or is it noise?” If it’s information, enact the solution. If it’s noise, treat it like a poor sales pitch and move on.

The second changes the stage. Psychologists call this cognitive reappraisal, which means changing what a situation means to you so that it changes how you feel about it.

The inner critic likes to take personal responsibility for problems created by the system. I worked with a leader whose team was frustrated by company-wide pay inequities and a rigid return-to-office policy, and he couldn’t fix either of them. His inner critic wouldn’t let go: “You’re failing them. You’re a figurehead.”

Reassessment helped him separate his own agency from the problems of the system. He said, “If I could give them a lifeline, I would. Since I can’t fix the policy, I’ll focus entirely on what I can control: mentorship and team culture.” He stopped defending what he couldn’t really defend and put his attention where he could make a difference. The guilt lifted, and his capacity to lead came back.

Bottom Line: Senior leadership can be a solitary role, but it doesn’t have to be a lonely one. Build a Green Room you choose on purpose, have a few truth-tellers backstage, and talk to yourself as you would talk to someone you want to continue working with.

Who’s in your Green Room with you right now?