{"id":37783,"date":"2020-12-11T12:09:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T12:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-its-so-lonely-at-top\/"},"modified":"2020-12-11T12:09:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T12:09:00","slug":"why-its-so-lonely-at-top","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-its-so-lonely-at-top\/","title":{"rendered":"Why It\u2019s So Lonely at the Top"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&ldquo;Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.&rdquo; This is the most famous line in William Shakespeare&rsquo;s play <em>Henry IV, Part 2<\/em>, spoken by the titular 15th-century English king. He is tired, sick, sad, and alone in his misery. His remark expresses the persistent idea that leaders tend to be isolated and lonely.<\/p>\n\n<p>Modern research supports this claim. It&rsquo;s not that leaders are more likely than others to say they are lonely people in general, but isolation and loneliness at work are a special source of unhappiness for people at the top.<\/p>\n\n<p>Friendship at work is crucial to happiness for most people. According to Gallup, employees who say they have a &ldquo;best friend&rdquo; at work are almost twice as likely as others to enjoy their workday. Almost 50 percent more likely to report high social well-being. But people at the top often miss out on workplace friendships, and they may suffer mightily as a result. According to one finding in the <em>Harvard Business Review<\/em>, half of CEOs experience loneliness on the job, and most of them feel loneliness hinders their work performance. Studies also have shown that loneliness is linked to burnout among leaders.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[446],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3532,3533,3647,3762,3861,4020,4021,4168,4286,4350,4351,4383,4469,4604,4873,5016,5022,5294],"tax_ctp_topics":[403],"class_list":["post-37783","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-burnout","tax_ctp_tags-business","tax_ctp_tags-companionship","tax_ctp_tags-depravity","tax_ctp_tags-emptiness","tax_ctp_tags-friendlessness","tax_ctp_tags-friendship","tax_ctp_tags-hopelessness","tax_ctp_tags-isolation","tax_ctp_tags-leader","tax_ctp_tags-leadership","tax_ctp_tags-loneliness","tax_ctp_tags-ministers","tax_ctp_tags-pastor","tax_ctp_tags-sadness","tax_ctp_tags-solitude","tax_ctp_tags-sorrow","tax_ctp_tags-work-career"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why It\u2019s So Lonely at the Top - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/why-its-so-lonely-at-top\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why It\u2019s So Lonely at the Top - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&ldquo;Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.&rdquo; This is the most famous line in William Shakespeare&rsquo;s play Henry IV, Part 2, spoken by the titular 15th-century English king. 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