The higher you rise as a leader, the fewer people you can be truly candid with.

Think about it. When you were earlier in your career, you probably had peers you could vent to, brainstorm with, even admit confusion to without consequence. Now? The circle of people with whom you can be fully honest about your doubts, your frustrations, even your fears has likely shrunk to a very small number. Maybe zero?

This isn’t a complaint. It’s a common reality of senior leadership that most people don’t fully prepare for.

I see this regularly with my clients. A CEO will tell me something they’ve been carrying around for weeks (sometimes months) and when I ask if they’ve shared it with anyone else, the answer is frequently no. Not their board. Not their leadership team. Maybe not even their spouse, because they don’t want to bring that weight or uncertainty home.

The result? Leaders make decisions in isolation that would benefit from being pressure-tested. They carry stress that compounds silently. And they can lose perspective or develop blind spots without realizing it, because people around them are less willing to tell them what they need to hear.

Much of this isolation is self-imposed, however. Many leaders believe understandably that showing uncertainty will erode confidence in their leadership or slow progress. So they project calmness and decisiveness, which only reinforces the wall between them and everyone else.

I’m not suggesting you bare your soul at the next all-hands meeting.

I am suggesting that if you don’t have at least one or two people in your life with whom you can think out loud – without managing their perception of you – you are operating with a significant handicap.

The best leaders I’ve worked with have built a small, trusted circle: a coach, a peer CEO, a longtime mentor. The relationship works because these people have no stake in the leader’s day-to-day decisions. They can listen and offer input without an agenda.

If you don’t have this circle, take the time to build it. Not because it’s a nice-to-have, but because the quality of your leadership depends on it.