What is loneliness?

Loneliness is your mind saying to you that you do not want to be surrounded with people. It is a feeling of a social void that you have stumbled upon and that lingers and persists. Loneliness can make you sad or unempathetic (neutral). You may feel content with yourself as there are no social accomplishments that you strive for which can mean that there is nothing lacking. Loneliness can thus induce creativity, improve cognition as there are not many available templates that you derive these from (the templates that come from socializing). However, there is the downside of loneliness too. After all, this is a world where people interact with each other. People who have the ability to be around other people are more likely to live a happy life.

Why loners are at the top?

It is commonsensical that people who socialize more are more likely to succeed as they are good at leveraging other people. However, when it comes to leading people, more so in the manner of either outperforming, showing the way, or achieving breakthroughs, loners are ones. Interpersonal skills and man management skills in the modern world are highly overrated. It runs on the narrative that people management is the end goal which cannot be farther from the truth. Nobody hires a leader to make the people happy. And nobody should. A leader is the one who can be different from the masses. It is a great leadership loss when the leader is held hostage by the requirement of people skills. People management which is different from a leadership role should be viewed with a different lens. Modern management techniques have us wrongly thinking that people managers are the best managers and everyone else is an outlier who should be perished. Everyone is looking for a happy group even at the perils of under-performance. The recent news about Zoom employees layoff and Rohit Sharma replaces Virat Kohli from ODI captaincy underlines this prevalent notion.

Do we need more loners in the world?

If we want greatness, then yes. But then, loneliness is not something that you choose willingly in pursuit of something. It is not a tool that you can use. One can choose to be aloof and cut off from social circles to achieve an objective. But that is more of a sacrifice, a going-against-the-tide and not an intrinsic, natural act to disconnect without any goal. So, yes, sacrifice can also yield great success. And loners who have very less to sacrifice to begin with are likely already on the right track.

Do loners move to top or people become loners after moving to top?

Both ways. People do become loners after moving to top not more so because they become arrogant after tasting success. People become loners because the top is reserved for the loners and is a relatively lonely place. It is not a place which is crowded. The notion that people change after they become successful is flawed because it is the very nature of success. Success induces change and the success exists as long as the change exists. Human being simply hops from one situation to other and simply acclimatizes in the new situation.

Bottom line

Would want to repeat the same line.It is a great leadership loss when the leader is held hostage by the requirement of people skills. In the game of skills, let us not obsess over who is the most fun guy to be around.