Lonliness - New crisis of this world

Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times

Studies show that social isolation has been a growing problem around the world for years and that it has huge negative impact on our health, well-being, and productivity. Work could be a place where we find connection, but too often, it’s not. We’re holed up in our own offices or cubes, or working remotely, and not interacting in a meaningful way.

Loneliness is that it’s very, very common. Even if you take studies that are more on the conservative side, that they would put loneliness at above 20% of the adult population here in the United States. In other countries like Australia, that number is closer to 25%. Similar with the U.K. and many studies across the world in Europe, in Asia, as well as in the Americas are finding that they have double digit percentages of loneliness among their populations.

There may be several factors that make barrier to connection in workplace. One of them is a fear of being vulnerable in the workplace. This may impact everyone, but especially leaders in organizations who feel that to be strong and to inspire confidence, they somehow have to never show that they have doubt and never expose any weakness or emotional vulnerability.

But while people do want to feel confident that their leaders are competent and that they can guide them through a crisis, they also want to know that the people who are leading them are human beings, that they can relate to the struggles that they themselves may have.

And one of small and big thing we can do now is listening to colleagues for an hour, 30 minutes or just 5 minutes, looking at his or her eyes deeply and really focusing on their story and feelings.

Source: Harvard Business Review, Together(Vivek Murthy)

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