担任首席执行官（CEO）固然好处多多：商业领袖可以执掌全球最具实力的公司，以行业先驱之名塑造个人传奇，并享受动辄上亿美元的丰厚薪酬。然而，在攀登企业晋升阶梯的陡峭路途中，许多人直到登顶俯瞰时，才意识到同行者已寥寥无几。这很可能是一份孤独、形单影只的工作。
从爱彼迎、UPS到百事公司和苹果等一些全球最大公司的领导者们，终于开始公开谈论这份工作带来的心理代价。事实证明，许多行业开拓者都在与强烈的孤独感作斗争；据一位哈佛医学院教授指出，至少40%的高管正考虑离职，主要是因为他们精力不济，且在应对日常挑战时感到孤立无援。而这个数字可能更高：根据2022年的一项德勤（Deloitte）研究，约70%的最高管理层领导者“正在认真考虑辞职，以寻找更能支持其身心健康的工作”。
为了抵御孤立感，创始人和高管们正将目光转向办公室之外，专注于改善自身健康。Toms创始人布莱克·麦考斯基（Blake Mycoskie）在将他一度很小的鞋业公司发展成为价值数十亿美元的巨头后，曾与抑郁和孤独抗争。他感到与人生目标脱节，“存在的理由现在感觉就像一份工作”，于是参加了一个为期三天的男性静修营来改善心理健康。价值3.5亿美元的甜品巨头Insomnia Cookies的创始人兼首席执行官塞思·伯科维茨（Seth Berkowitz）则告诫那些目光明亮的创业者，这份工作“并不真的适合所有人”。
“这可能会很孤独；这是一种孤独的生活。确实如此，”伯科维茨最近告诉《财富》杂志。
布赖恩·切斯基，爱彼迎联合创始人兼首席执行官
爱彼迎的联合创始人兼首席执行官布莱恩·切斯基是商界中就孤独问题拉响警报最直言不讳的领导者之一。切斯基描述自己有一个孤独的童年，在对创意设计的热爱和体育之间拉扯，从未真正融入。但一旦接任爱彼迎CEO，他的心理健康状况就开始恶化。他的另外两位联合创始人——他称之为“家人”，曾与他们朝夕相处，一起工作、锻炼、闲逛——在他登上最高管理层的顶峰后，突然从他的视野中消失了。
“当我成为CEO后，我开始站在前沿、在山顶领导，但你越接近顶峰，与你同行的人就越少，”切斯基去年在《On Purpose》播客的一集节目中告诉杰·谢蒂（Jay Shetty）。”从来没有人告诉过我你会变得多孤独，我对此没有准备。”
切斯基建议新兴领导者实际分享他们的权力，这样就没有人需要独自承担创业的心理负担。
“我认为，归根结底，今天我们可能生活在人类历史上最孤独的时期之一，”切斯基说。“如果过去的人像今天这样孤独，他们可能已经消亡了，因为离开了部落你根本无法生存。”
卢英德，百事公司前首席执行官
《财富》美国500强巨头百事公司的领导者们面临着来自消费者、投资者、董事会成员和自己员工的持续压力。但向那些可能无法理解——甚至不明白——运营一家2090亿美元公司的考验和磨难的同龄人倾诉也很困难。该公司前CEO卢英德（Indra Nooyi）表示，她常常感到孤立，无人可以倾诉。
“你不能总是和你的配偶谈论。你不能和你的朋友谈论，因为涉及公司机密。你不能和你的董事会谈论，因为他们是你的老板。你不能和为你的员工谈论，因为他们为你工作，”今年早些时候，卢英德告诉西北大学凯洛格管理学院的研究杂志《Kellogg Insight》。“因此，这让你处于一个相当孤独的境地。”
卢英德没有向值得信赖的朋友倾诉，也没有在Reddit上匿名发泄她的挫败感，而是转向内心。她是唯一能信任的人，即使这意味着要拥抱孤独。
“我会自言自语。我会去照镜子。我会对自己说话。我会对自己发怒。我会掉几滴眼泪，然后涂上口红走出来，”卢英德说。“这是我的惯用方法，因为所有人都需要一个出口。你必须非常小心你的出口是谁，因为你绝不希望他们在任何时候用它来对付你。”
卡罗尔·托梅，UPS首席执行官
在卡罗尔·托梅（Carol Tomé）担任UPS首席执行官之前，有人警告她最高职位与孤独相伴。这番提醒并没有让她动摇——至少起初没有。但当她真正执掌这家750亿美元的航运公司时，情况发生了变化。
“我当时会说，‘到底能有多孤独呢？不可能那么孤独吧？'我后来了解到的是，它异常孤独，”托梅去年告诉《财富》杂志。
“当你还是高管团队的一员时，大家常聚在一起……现在，我的高管团队会等我离开会议室，然后他们一起进行汇报。这就是现实，你必须习惯它。但这非常孤独。”
蒂姆·库克，苹果公司首席执行官
苹果公司CEO蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）也无法免疫角落办公室常常伴随的孤独感。上任超过14年，他承认自己曾有过失，他称之为“盲点”，如果任其发展，可能会影响到公司上下成千上万的员工。库克表示，领导者重要的是要跳出自己的思维定式，让自己身边围绕着能激发出自己最佳状态的聪明人。
“这算是份孤独的工作，”库克在2016年告诉《华盛顿邮报》（The Washington Post）。“俗话说得好——CEO的工作是孤独的——这在很多方面都是准确的。我不是在寻求任何同情。”
塞思·伯科维茨，Insomnia Cookies创始人兼首席执行官
创业可以是一段深刻充实且回报丰厚的旅程：如果所有条件都满足，这是一个用朝九晚五的工作换取数百万美元财富的机会。尽管Insomnia Cookies的塞思·伯科维茨（Seth Berkowitz）热爱担任CEO及其带来的所有责任，但他告诫怀揣希望的年轻人这份职业的沉重分量。和库克一样，他建议有抱负的创始人通过真诚、有意义的联系来对抗孤独。
“这可能会很孤独；这是一种孤独的生活。确实如此。在更艰难的时期，非常孤独——找到同志情谊、导师指导、某种社区感，这真的非常重要，”伯科维茨最近告诉《财富》杂志。“因为我投入得太深，有时很难找到别人并让他们进入我的世界。”（*）
译者：郝秀
审校：汪皓
担任首席执行官（CEO）固然好处多多：商业领袖可以执掌全球最具实力的公司，以行业先驱之名塑造个人传奇，并享受动辄上亿美元的丰厚薪酬。然而，在攀登企业晋升阶梯的陡峭路途中，许多人直到登顶俯瞰时，才意识到同行者已寥寥无几。这很可能是一份孤独、形单影只的工作。
从爱彼迎、UPS到百事公司和苹果等一些全球最大公司的领导者们，终于开始公开谈论这份工作带来的心理代价。事实证明，许多行业开拓者都在与强烈的孤独感作斗争；据一位哈佛医学院教授指出，至少40%的高管正考虑离职，主要是因为他们精力不济，且在应对日常挑战时感到孤立无援。而这个数字可能更高：根据2022年的一项德勤（Deloitte）研究，约70%的最高管理层领导者“正在认真考虑辞职，以寻找更能支持其身心健康的工作”。
为了抵御孤立感，创始人和高管们正将目光转向办公室之外，专注于改善自身健康。Toms创始人布莱克·麦考斯基（Blake Mycoskie）在将他一度很小的鞋业公司发展成为价值数十亿美元的巨头后，曾与抑郁和孤独抗争。他感到与人生目标脱节，“存在的理由现在感觉就像一份工作”，于是参加了一个为期三天的男性静修营来改善心理健康。价值3.5亿美元的甜品巨头Insomnia Cookies的创始人兼首席执行官塞思·伯科维茨（Seth Berkowitz）则告诫那些目光明亮的创业者，这份工作“并不真的适合所有人”。
“这可能会很孤独；这是一种孤独的生活。确实如此，”伯科维茨最近告诉《财富》杂志。
布赖恩·切斯基，爱彼迎联合创始人兼首席执行官
爱彼迎的联合创始人兼首席执行官布莱恩·切斯基是商界中就孤独问题拉响警报最直言不讳的领导者之一。切斯基描述自己有一个孤独的童年，在对创意设计的热爱和体育之间拉扯，从未真正融入。但一旦接任爱彼迎CEO，他的心理健康状况就开始恶化。他的另外两位联合创始人——他称之为“家人”，曾与他们朝夕相处，一起工作、锻炼、闲逛——在他登上最高管理层的顶峰后，突然从他的视野中消失了。
“当我成为CEO后，我开始站在前沿、在山顶领导，但你越接近顶峰，与你同行的人就越少，”切斯基去年在《On Purpose》播客的一集节目中告诉杰·谢蒂（Jay Shetty）。”从来没有人告诉过我你会变得多孤独，我对此没有准备。”
切斯基建议新兴领导者实际分享他们的权力，这样就没有人需要独自承担创业的心理负担。
“我认为，归根结底，今天我们可能生活在人类历史上最孤独的时期之一，”切斯基说。“如果过去的人像今天这样孤独，他们可能已经消亡了，因为离开了部落你根本无法生存。”
卢英德，百事公司前首席执行官
《财富》美国500强巨头百事公司的领导者们面临着来自消费者、投资者、董事会成员和自己员工的持续压力。但向那些可能无法理解——甚至不明白——运营一家2090亿美元公司的考验和磨难的同龄人倾诉也很困难。该公司前CEO卢英德（Indra Nooyi）表示，她常常感到孤立，无人可以倾诉。
“你不能总是和你的配偶谈论。你不能和你的朋友谈论，因为涉及公司机密。你不能和你的董事会谈论，因为他们是你的老板。你不能和为你的员工谈论，因为他们为你工作，”今年早些时候，卢英德告诉西北大学凯洛格管理学院的研究杂志《Kellogg Insight》。“因此，这让你处于一个相当孤独的境地。”
卢英德没有向值得信赖的朋友倾诉，也没有在Reddit上匿名发泄她的挫败感，而是转向内心。她是唯一能信任的人，即使这意味着要拥抱孤独。
“我会自言自语。我会去照镜子。我会对自己说话。我会对自己发怒。我会掉几滴眼泪，然后涂上口红走出来，”卢英德说。“这是我的惯用方法，因为所有人都需要一个出口。你必须非常小心你的出口是谁，因为你绝不希望他们在任何时候用它来对付你。”
卡罗尔·托梅，UPS首席执行官
在卡罗尔·托梅（Carol Tomé）担任UPS首席执行官之前，有人警告她最高职位与孤独相伴。这番提醒并没有让她动摇——至少起初没有。但当她真正执掌这家750亿美元的航运公司时，情况发生了变化。
“我当时会说，‘到底能有多孤独呢？不可能那么孤独吧？'我后来了解到的是，它异常孤独，”托梅去年告诉《财富》杂志。
“当你还是高管团队的一员时，大家常聚在一起……现在，我的高管团队会等我离开会议室，然后他们一起进行汇报。这就是现实，你必须习惯它。但这非常孤独。”
蒂姆·库克，苹果公司首席执行官
苹果公司CEO蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）也无法免疫角落办公室常常伴随的孤独感。上任超过14年，他承认自己曾有过失，他称之为“盲点”，如果任其发展，可能会影响到公司上下成千上万的员工。库克表示，领导者重要的是要跳出自己的思维定式，让自己身边围绕着能激发出自己最佳状态的聪明人。
“这算是份孤独的工作，”库克在2016年告诉《华盛顿邮报》（The Washington Post）。“俗话说得好——CEO的工作是孤独的——这在很多方面都是准确的。我不是在寻求任何同情。”
塞思·伯科维茨，Insomnia Cookies创始人兼首席执行官
创业可以是一段深刻充实且回报丰厚的旅程：如果所有条件都满足，这是一个用朝九晚五的工作换取数百万美元财富的机会。尽管Insomnia Cookies的塞思·伯科维茨（Seth Berkowitz）热爱担任CEO及其带来的所有责任，但他告诫怀揣希望的年轻人这份职业的沉重分量。和库克一样，他建议有抱负的创始人通过真诚、有意义的联系来对抗孤独。
“这可能会很孤独；这是一种孤独的生活。确实如此。在更艰难的时期，非常孤独——找到同志情谊、导师指导、某种社区感，这真的非常重要，”伯科维茨最近告诉《财富》杂志。“因为我投入得太深，有时很难找到别人并让他们进入我的世界。”（*）
译者：郝秀
审校：汪皓
Being CEO has its many perks: Business leaders get to command the world's most powerful companies, shape their legacies as pioneers of industry, and enjoy hefty billion-dollar paychecks. But in the steep climb up the corporate ladder, many won't notice all the peers left behind until they're looking down from the very top. It can be a lonely, solitary job.
Leaders at some of the world's largest companies---from Airbnb and UPS to PepsiCo and Apple---are finally opening up about the mental toll that comes with the job. As it turns out, many industry trailblazers are grappling with intense loneliness; at least 40% of executives are thinking of leaving their job, mainly because they're lacking energy and feel alone in handling daily challenges, according to a Harvard Medical School professor. And the number could even be higher: About 70% of C-suite leaders “are seriously considering quitting for a job that better supports their well-being,” according to a 2022 Deloitte study.
To ward off feelings of isolation, founders and top executives are stepping outside of the office to focus on improving their well-being. Toms founder Blake Mycoskie struggled with depression and loneliness after scaling his once-small shoe business into a billion-dollar behemoth. Feeling disconnected from his life's purpose and that his “reason for being now felt like a job,” he went on a three-day men's retreat to work on his mental health. And Seth Berkowitz, the founder and CEO of $350 million dessert giant Insomnia Cookies, cautions bright-eyed entrepreneurs the gig “is not really for everyone.”
“It can be lonely; it's a solitary life. It really is,” Berkowitz recently told Fortune.
Brian Chesky, cofounder and CEO of Airbnb
Airbnb's cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky is one the most outspoken leaders in the business world waving the red flag on loneliness. Chesky described having a lonely childhood, pulled between his love for creative design and sports, never really fitting in. But his mental health took a turn for the worse once assuming the throne as Airbnb's CEO. His other two cofounders---who he called his “family,” spending all their waking hours working, exercising, and hanging out together---were suddenly out of view from the peak of the C-suite.
“As I became a CEO I started leading from the front, at the top of the mountain, but then the higher you get to the peak, the fewer the people there are with you,” Chesky told Jay Shetty during an episode of the On Purpose podcast last year. “No one ever told me how lonely you would get, and I wasn't prepared for that.”
Chesky recommends budding leaders actually share their power, so no one shoulders the mental burden of entrepreneurship alone.
“I think that ultimately, today, we're probably living in one of the loneliest times in human history,” Chesky said. “If people were as lonely in yesteryear as they are today, they'd probably perish, because you just couldn't survive without your tribe.”
Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo
Leaders at Fortune 500 giant PepsiCo face constant pressure from consumers, investors, board members, and their own employees. But it's also tough to vent to peers who may not relate to---or even understand---the trials and tribulations of running a $209 billion company. Indra Nooyi, the business' former CEO, said she often felt isolated with no one to confide in.
“You can't really talk to your spouse all the time. You can't talk to your friends because it's confidential stuff about the company. You can't talk to your board because they are your bosses. You can't talk to people who work for you because they work for you,” Nooyi told Kellogg Insight, the research magazine for Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, earlier this year. “And so it puts you in a fairly lonely position.”
Instead of divulging to a trusted friend or anonymously airing out her frustrations on Reddit, Nooyi looked inward. She was the only person she could trust, even if that meant embracing the isolation.
“I would talk to myself. I would go look at myself in a mirror. I would talk to myself. I would rage at myself. I would shed a few tears, then put on some lipstick and come out,” Nooyi said. “That was my go-to because all people need an outlet. And you have to be very careful who your outlet is because you never want them to use it against you at any point.”
Carol Tomé, CEO of UPS
Before Carol Tomé stepped into the role of the CEO of UPS, she was warned the top job goes hand-in-hand with loneliness. The word of caution didn't phase her---at least, not at first. But things changed when she actually took the helm of the $75 billion shipping company.
“I would say, 'How lonely can it really be? It can't be that lonely?' What I've since learned is that it is extraordinarily lonely,” Tomé told Fortune last year.
“When you are a member of an executive team, you hang together...Now, my executive team will wait for me to leave a meeting so that they can debrief together. It's the reality and you have to get used to it. But it is super lonely.”
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
Apple CEO Tim Cook isn't immune to the loneliness that often comes with the corner office. More than 14 years into his tenure, he's acknowledged his missteps, which he called “blind spots,” that have the potential to affect thousands of workers across the company if left unchecked. Cook said it's important for leaders to get out of their own heads and surround themselves with bright people who bring out the best in them.
“It's sort of a lonely job,” Cook told The Washington Post in 2016. “The adage that it's lonely---the CEO job is lonely---is accurate in a lot of ways. I'm not looking for any sympathy.”
Seth Berkowitz, founder and CEO of Insomnia Cookies
Entrepreneurship can be a deeply fulfilling and rewarding journey: an opportunity to trade a nine-to-five job for a multimillion-dollar fortune, if all the right conditions are met. And while Insomnia Cookies' Seth Berkowitz loves being a CEO and all the responsibilities that come with it, he cautioned young hopefuls about the weight of the career. He, like Cook, advises aspiring founders to counter loneliness with genuine, meaningful connections.
“It can be lonely; it's a solitary life. It really is. [During] the harder times, it's very solitary---finding camaraderie, mentorship, some sense of community, it's really important,” Berkowitz recently told Fortune. “Because I go so deep, it's sometimes hard to find others and let them in.”