In this article, Laurent Boghossian, Comedian, Keynote Speaker and Leadership expert, explores ideas such as managerial loneliness, the pressure managers face, and how collective intelligence can turn isolation into a source of connection and meaning.

The Hidden Loneliness of Management

Management is often described through the language of leadership, performance and responsibility. Less often discussed is the manager’s loneliness.

Managers constantly operate between two worlds. Employees may question or misunderstand difficult decisions, while senior leadership expects faster decisions and stronger results. Caught between these pressures, managers can find themselves carrying responsibilities that are difficult to share.

The Manager Under Pressure

Being a manager can be both fascinating and exhausting. The manager is expected to protect employees, offer meaningful assignments, maintain performance and absorb organizational change. This combination can create a form of managerial isolation, particularly when managers believe they must solve every problem themselves.

Laurent Boghossian illustrates this paradox humorously through a construction-site manager in his show Le Manager est un humoriste comme les autres: an engineer who simply wants to build towers gradually becomes overwhelmed by communication requirements and management expectations.

The “Saviour Syndrome” in Management

This pressure can lead to what might be called the “saviour syndrome”: managers feel responsible for protecting their teams, finding interesting assignments and ensuring performance, while keeping their own doubts and difficulties to themselves.

The result is a powerful illusion. Each manager may see themselves as a solitary “cork” floating in an ocean of constraints, frustration and constant change. Yet this perception is misleading: the ocean is actually full of other managers experiencing much the same reality.

Collective Intelligence as a Management Solution

The way out may therefore begin with a simple question: “How would you handle this?”

Managers can benefit enormously from asking peers and other teams for a fresh perspective. This principle comes directly from software engineering: when a system contains a bug, bringing in two or three people with a different perspective can reveal a solution—or simply trigger the insight needed to find one.

Human Connection Creates Meaning at Work

This is the essence of collective intelligence in the workplace. Collaboration may sometimes be uncomfortable, but interaction and connection are essential if organizations want to meet performance expectations while also enabling employees to create meaning at work.

The future of leadership may therefore depend less on managers having all the answers and more on their ability to connect people, share perspectives and recognize that no manager needs to face the organizational ocean alone.

Key takeaways

• Managerial loneliness often comes from being caught between employee expectations and senior leadership pressure while feeling personally responsible for every decision.
• Managers may isolate themselves by trying to protect their teams, solve every problem and maintain performance without seeking enough support from their peers.
• The feeling of being alone can be misleading: many managers experience similar constraints, frustrations and organizational changes without realizing they share the same challenges.
• Collective intelligence becomes powerful when managers openly seek fresh perspectives, allowing colleagues to challenge assumptions and sometimes reveal solutions they could not see themselves.
• Human connection and interaction are essential to creating meaning at work while helping organizations balance employee needs with performance and business expectations.

5 questions every manager should regularly ask themselves

• How can I overcome managerial loneliness?
• How managers can I reduce isolation at work?
• How collective intelligence could improve my management?
• How can I build collective intelligence in the workplace?
• How can I lower professional pressure?

This summary was generated by artificial intelligence by Laurent Boghossian himself, updated and reviewed by Laurent Boghossian himself, based on audio recordings made by Laurent Boghossian himself.

“Artificial intelligence at the service of humanity. Not the other way around.“