Issue #14: Ever Been Surrounded By People But Still Felt Alone? Yeah, Me Too.

In August 2013, I stepped into a leadership role across North Asia.

Multiple countries. Multiple languages. A multi-generational, multicultural team I didn't know yet—and they didn't know me.

I'd just left one of the tightest teams I'd ever worked with. We'd been through the gauntlet together. Celebrated wins. Survived disasters. Built trust the hard way.

And now I was starting over. Alone.

I tried to act confident. I had the title. I'd done the prep. But outward success doesn't fix internal disconnection. I was surrounded by people—and I felt completely isolated.

It wasn't just the geography or the time zones. It was the loss of shared context. The absence of people who knew me well enough to read between the lines. The weight of leading without anyone to process it with.

Loneliness doesn't announce itself with a crisis. It just quietly becomes the baseline.

I felt it again during Covid—trapped at home, living on adrenaline, too focused on survival to even process the isolation.

And I've felt it more recently, in roles where I didn't feel like the right fit at the time. Where I had concerns I couldn't voice. Where I questioned whether I was failing people—and had no one to talk to about it.

I'm blessed to be surrounded by people I love to work with most days. But that doesn't mean every day. And I shouldn't be embarrassed by that. Neither should you.

Because loneliness can be part of a job—but it shouldn't be most of any job.

When loneliness becomes more frequent than connection, that's when companies lose people. That's when cultures break. And that's when leaders burn out in silence, convinced they're the only ones struggling.

The data backs this up. One in five employees worldwide feels lonely at work. Not stressed. Not burned out. Lonely.

And yet, companies are investing billions in perks, policies, and office mandates—trying to fix disconnection without ever naming it.

The Case for Connection

Loneliness at work isn't new. But the scale of it is.

According to Gallup's 2024 State of the Global Workplace report, 20% of employees worldwide feel lonely at work. Not occasionally either... frequently enough that it's reshaping how they show up, how they perform, and whether they stay.

And here's what makes this a leadership issue, not a personality problem: Loneliness is strongly shaped by work conditions — engagement, meaningful work, whether people feel their opinions count.

It's not about being an introvert or working remotely. It's about whether leaders create clarity, recognize contributions, and give people a chance to do what they do best.

Harvard Business Review put it bluntly in 2024: "We're still lonely at work." Despite more discussion, more initiatives, and more return-to-office mandates, workplace loneliness hasn't improved.

Why? Because being in the office more days doesn't automatically reduce loneliness. You can be lonely in a crowded conference room if the culture doesn't create meaningful connection.

Culture always beats location. What matters most is psychological safety, inclusion in decisions, and the quality—not quantity—of interactions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce frames this even more starkly: Loneliness is a business risk. It's linked to lower performance, weaker career growth, and higher turnover.

Cigna's 2025 report shows that more than half of American workers classify as lonely in their broader lives, with clear spillover to work. And the cost is an estimated $154 billion annually in lost productivity, absenteeism, and attrition.

But loneliness isn't something employees need to fix alone with "self-care."

It's a systemic design issue—role load, pace, recognition, manager behavior, inclusion. Leaders either build connection into how work happens, or they accept that disconnection will quietly erode trust, creativity, and performance.

The good news for all of us is that connection is buildable — a critical infrastructure to a sustainable business culture. And when leaders treat it that way, teams thrive.

I've seen this firsthand—and learned it the hard way.

Connection matters. And while I still have days where I feel disconnected or lonely, I've built better habits to make sure those moments stay isolated instead of becoming the norm.

When I notice the creep, I reach out to a friend. I make plans to see someone face-to-face. I solve a problem with a colleague instead of alone. I do something creative that reminds me I'm more than my inbox.

These things work for me.

But the real shift happened when I stopped treating connection as something I "should" be better at—and started treating it as infrastructure I needed to build intentionally.

The key is finding what works for you—and working somewhere that doesn't just talk about connection in surveys, but builds it into the way people work together.

🧂 Why Connection Works

Connection isn't a feel-good add-on. It's a performance multiplier. Here's what the research shows:

• Performance & Retention Are on the Line Employees who feel disconnected perform worse, advance more slowly, and leave faster. The organizations that treat connection as operational—not optional—gain a strategic edge in retention and results.

• Culture Beats Location Every Time Bringing people back to the office doesn't solve loneliness. What reduces loneliness is psychological safety, inclusion in decisions, and interactions that feel meaningful—not just frequent. Leaders who focus on how people connect, not just where, create cultures where people actually want to show up.

• Loneliness Is a Design Problem, Not a Personal Flaw Loneliness isn't something employees need to solve with meditation apps or therapy (though both help). It's shaped by role clarity, workload, recognition, manager behavior, and whether people feel like they matter. When leaders design work to include connection rituals, intentional collaboration, and regular check-ins, they're not being "nice"—they're preventing a systemic drain on energy, morale, and output.

🍴 Try a Bite This Week

You don't need a culture overhaul to start building connection. You just need to decide it's worth building. Here are some things you can deploy with no cost and all upside:

🍴 The Buddy System (For New Hires) Pair every new hire with an onboarding buddy—not their manager, not HR, but a peer who can give them context, answer dumb questions, and help them feel like a real person, not just a seat that needed filling. At 30 days, ask: "Have there been any moments where you started to feel like part of the team—or are you still finding your footing?" Follow up with "What helped?" or "Any surprises?" or "What do you wish had happened differently?" This surfaces disconnection early, before it hardens into disengagement.

🍴 Weather Check-Ins (For Team Meetings) Start your next team meeting with a quick emotional weather report. Everyone shares: stormy (struggling), cloudy (managing), or sunny (good). No explanations required—just a signal. It takes 90 seconds and creates shared emotional context for the work ahead. People don't need you to fix their "stormy" days—they just need to know they're not hiding them. It's a small shift that builds psychological safety over time. Plus, it's always fun to see what people come up with!

🍴 The Stay Interview (For Current Employees) Don't wait for exit interviews to learn why people feel disconnected. Run quarterly "stay interviews" with your team. Ask: "What's giving you energy right now? What's draining it?" and "Do you feel like your work matters—and if not, what would help?" These aren't performance reviews. They're connection audits. They tell you where the culture is drifting before people start quietly looking for the door.

💡 A Final Thought

If you're feeling disconnected right now—even surrounded by people—you're not broken. You're not alone. You're human. And humans aren't built to do hard things in isolation.

Connection doesn't happen by accident. It happens when someone decides it's worth building. Sometimes that someone is your leader. Sometimes it's you.

Start small. Reach out. Ask how someone's really doing. Name what's hard. Build the habit of not disappearing when things get tough.

Because the teams that weather hard seasons aren't the ones with the best perks or the fanciest offices. They're the ones where people know they matter—and feel it every day.

And the people who weather them are the ones who didn't wait until they were drowning to build a lifeline.

🌶️ Add Your Spice

What's stopping you from building more connection with your team right now—your calendar, your comfort zone, or the belief that "work isn't therapy"?

Drop it in the comments. The answers might surprise you.

If this resonated, share it with someone who's thinking about how to build stronger connections on their team.