When did IT leadership become so lonely?

For most tech leaders, loneliness doesn’t arrive with a bang. You don’t wake up one day and think, “Wow, I’m lonely.” It’s more subtle than that. It seeps in gradually, unnoticed.  

From the outside, friends see an aspiring leader, family see someone who is often working, and bosses and colleagues see someone to help them solve problems. The reality is different. It’s about making difficult decisions on your own because there’s no obvious place to talk about them inside most organisations. It’s about being responsible for things that are outside of your control, and it’s often about reassuring people without any certainty. 

While there are hundreds of research articles about the loneliness of the CEO, there are far fewer dedicated to the loneliness of technology professionals. And yet research from CTO Craft suggests that loneliness is a common experience among technology leaders, especially those in more senior or standalone roles. 

The issue isn’t that IT leaders lack interaction. After all, no doubt your inbox is full, your LinkedIn pings regularly (AI article anyone?), and your colleagues are a constant (joyful) interruption. It's more about a lack of meaningful, trusted peer relationships. These relationships are rarely prioritised inside organisations, leaving a structural gap in support that means many tech leaders have no regular way to offload.  

Many tech leaders I speak with tell me that they sit at an awkward intersection. They are close enough to the board to feel the weight of expectation, but too far away to have any real influence over decision-making, which only adds to that feeling of having to cope on your own.  

In smaller businesses, the CIO or IT Manager is often the only technology voice in the room, and in larger or global organisations, politics and reporting lines complicate things, making the isolation and pressure feel even more pronounced. Either way, it’s easy to find yourself without a safe place to think out loud.

So, you do what most capable, pragmatic people do; you internalise it. You solve the problem yourself while replaying decisions and conversations privately. You move on to the next issue. Over time, this just becomes normal. 

This isn’t about fragility or mental health labels. It’s about how, as founder of Airbnb, Brian Chesky put it on the Diary of a CEO podcast, “No one told me how lonely this journey was going to be.” It’s something few talk about, but most feel. Because every leader, at some point, feels the weight of leading alone.

This is especially true for CIOs and tech professionals for whom even the language they speak – acronyms and algorithms, speeds and feeds - is a barrier to communicating with anyone outside of their sphere. 

But, as CTO Craft’s work highlights, this has organisational repercussions. When leaders feel isolated, they are more likely to experience self-doubt, decision fatigue and heightened stress. And this isn’t because they aren’t good at their jobs. It’s simply because there is too much to deal with, too often, for too long without an outlet or sounding board to help. Left unchecked, this impacts more than just the individual; it affects the quality and pace of decisions across the business. As Chesky also said on the podcast: “Lonely leaders are probably not the best leaders.”

And herein lies the challenge. Organisations continue to treat this as an individual burden to manage, rather than a structural gap to address. The expectation is that senior technology leaders will simply cope with the complexity, and carry on carrying on, even while the decisions they make become broader, riskier and have even greater consequences 

This doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there trying to help. Our industry is great at producing content. There is no shortage of frameworks, opinion pieces, podcasts and leadership advice aimed at tech leaders. Much of it is useful. Some of it is excellent. But most of it is designed to be consumed alone, in between meetings, late at night, or while travelling. 

This content, while it can be helpful, doesn’t create a connection. It’s not someone who can help, listen, or offer advice. And it doesn’t reduce the sense that everyone else has it under control while you’re frantically trying to work things out as you go. 

 You are not alone

If all this is starting to sound familiar, you are not alone. The CTO Craft research found that an astonishing 97% of respondents said they had felt lonely at some point, and 63% said they felt lonely in their current role. These stats show that this isn’t a personal resilience issue anymore; it’s a design flaw in how organisations support people carrying out their most complex decisions.

So, what’s the answer? There isn’t a single silver bullet for this, but one of the most effective ways organisations can close the gap and break the isolation is by opening opportunities for tech leaders to meet and have candid discussions within peer groups, for example. Peers will understand the management structure and feel similar business pressures, and they also have the advantage of knowing first-hand the personality types you’re dealing with internally. 

 Another option is joining an informal peer group or curated leadership circle. These are not as daunting or cliché as they sound. It’s not about networking exercises or just another demand on your no doubt already stretched diary. 

 Many are practical get-togethers that can shorten the time you spend stuck on problems by working together on an issue. They introduce new perspectives and can help you make better decisions more quickly because you’re no longer doing all the thinking in isolation. Above all, they are safe spaces to share your worries with like-minded people.  

 In the tech sector, we talk a lot about resilience and leadership capability, but far less about the structural isolation of senior roles, especially in environments where delivery pressure never really lets off.  

Over time, isolation has a cost, and while it’s unlikely it’ll ever hit you with a bang, it will wear you down, narrow thinking, and increase the risk of poor decisions across the business, simply because there is no proper sounding board or pressure release.  

 This doesn’t mean IT leaders are failing. If anything, it suggests the opposite. Most tech leaders are coping extremely well in roles that offer little structural support for reflection, peer connection or shared thinking. 

 But leadership is not a solo sport. The idea that senior technology roles should be managed in isolation doesn’t match today’s reality of the job or the complexity and array of decisions being made. When leaders have space to think together, share ideas, and speak honestly without consequence, they don’t just feel better, they lead better.