Navigating Your Leadership Journey: Tailored Tips for Black Men in Mid-Level Roles
By Dominic George · July 5th 2025

Happy Saturday! Word Count: 1780…13.42 minutes. Copy edited by Dominic George

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Vision Leadership for Life newsletter, designed with the specific challenges faced by Black men in mid-level leadership positions in mind. We understand the unique journey you’re on, and our goal is to provide practical insights to help you thrive in your professional evolution. So, lets dive into today’s topic and Elevate Your Leadership.

Why Leadership Feels Lonelier for Black Men the Higher You Rise

The Solitude at the Summit: There’s a quiet paradox at the core of leadership that few talk about honestly: the higher you climb, the lonelier it gets.

You spend years grinding, earning every title, building your brand, and collecting receipts of excellence. You break barriers that weren’t built with you in mind. You navigate systems that demand your excellence but rarely affirm your humanity. And when you finally arrive, senior executive, founder, principal, director, you look around and realize how few people are standing beside you.

Not because you're unliked. Not because you’re unsupported. But because leadership, particularly as a Black man, becomes thinner air the closer you get to the top.

Today, I want to unpack why that loneliness exists, how it affects our leadership, and how we can reclaim connection without shrinking our vision.

The Myth of Arrival
We’re conditioned to believe that getting the promotion, landing the C-suite role, or launching the business will cure our feelings of isolation. That finally having a seat at the table will mean we can relax and be seen fully. But the truth? Leadership isn’t a finish line. It’s a new frontier and it often begins with silence.

When you’re a rising Black leader, your ascent is rarely linear. You carry not just your own ambitions, but the weight of expectation, your family’s, your community’s, your younger self’s. You’re managing microaggressions, while mentoring the next generation. You’re building wealth and battling imposter syndrome. You’re trying to speak the language of power, while staying fluent in your own authenticity.

And the higher you go, the fewer people you find who speak that same dialect.

You don’t feel like you can fully exhale, because there’s always something to prove.

Why the top feels so isolated? There are a few reasons why leadership can feel so isolating, even when you're technically more visible and respected.

1. Fewer Peers, More Performers

At senior levels, you’re less likely to find peers who can relate to your lived experience. People may admire your title, but they don’t always understand your terrain. You start spending more time managing perceptions than nurturing authentic relationships.

2. Trust Gets Complicated

The higher your role, the more people want something from you. Trust becomes harder to calibrate. Are they connecting with you as a human or as a stepping stone to something else? You start guarding your words, editing your vulnerability, and protecting your image to survive the politics of power.

3. Visibility Becomes Surveillance

For Black leaders in particular, being seen doesn’t always mean being safe. Leadership visibility often comes with intense scrutiny. One misstep is weaponized. One boundary is called “difficult.” You become hyper-aware of how you’re perceived and can’t always afford to show fatigue, fear, or doubt, even when it’s real.

4. Your Old Circles Don’t Always Fit

Sometimes, the people who supported you early in your journey can’t go with you to the next level. Not because they don’t love you, but because your priorities, pace, and perspectives have changed. That loss of community, especially when no new circle has emerged, can feel jarring.

Additional Tip for Black Men: Make space for your truth to be spoken.

Solution Shift: Replace the habit of powering through with the practice of speaking up. Name what feels heavy. That could mean working with a coach or therapist or simply choosing to confide in someone who gets it. Giving voice to your experience restores clarity and allows you to lead from wholeness, not from survival.

How Loneliness for Black Men Shows Up in Leadership?

The loneliness of leadership isn’t always loud. It creeps in through:

• Over-functioning: You start doing everything yourself because you don’t fully trust others will meet your standard or hold your vision.

• Decision fatigue: Every decision feels weighty, because you feel the consequences ripple through so many others.

• Self-doubt: You begin to wonder if you're making the right calls or if your instincts can still be trusted without affirmation.

• Emotional numbness: You start muting your feelings just to get through the week. What once sparked you, now feels like obligation.

• Resentment: You carry the silent frustration of leading others without having anyone to lead you or even ask how you're doing.

This isn’t weakness. It’s a signal. Leadership, especially for those of us who are pioneering new lanes, is not a solo sport. But the system often forces us to play like it is.

Reframing the Loneliness

At Vision Leadership for LIFE, I coach Black men who are navigating this exact space. Men who are accomplished but isolated. Driven but depleted. At the peak of their careers and wondering, “Now what?”

Here’s what I remind them and what I remind myself.

Loneliness at the top isn’t proof that you don’t belong. It’s proof that you’re building something bigger than yourself.

But you weren’t meant to do it alone. Here are a few strategies to shift the experience:

Strategy 1: Build a Circle, Not an Audience

You don't need more fans. You need a circle of people who see you beyond your role. Start curating a personal board of directors, mentors, peers, elders, and truth-tellers who can hold space for your leadership and your humanity. Seek rooms where you don’t have to perform.

Strategy 2: Reclaim Vulnerability as a Power Move

Vulnerability isn’t a liability in leadership. It’s a signal that you’re still connected to the work, and to yourself. Find safe containers, coaching, therapy, fellowship, where you can name what’s heavy. Because suppressed emotion doesn’t disappear. It redirects itself through burnout, disengagement, and disconnection.

Strategy 3: Align Your Work With Your Values

Loneliness intensifies when your leadership feels performative. The antidote is clarity. Get ruthlessly honest about your values and use them as a filter for how you lead, who you lead with, and what you say yes to. When your work reflects your integrity, your leadership becomes a form of companionship with yourself.

Strategy 4: Normalize Seasons of Solitude

Every leader has moments of necessary solitude. Not isolation, but intentional space for reflection, restoration, and recalibration. Use this time to invest inward, through reading, spiritual practice, or visioning your next move. Sometimes the loneliness is less about a lack of people and more about your spirit calling you back to center.

What the Summit Can Really Look Like

Imagine a summit that doesn’t feel like exile. A leadership journey that doesn’t demand you sacrifice connection for influence. A version of success where you’re not just respected but truly known.

That’s what we’re building at Vision Leadership for LIFE. A coaching movement that centers the truth: Black men deserve to lead without losing themselves. We deserve to be excellent without being isolated. We deserve community at the top, not just applause.

You can be powerful and still need care. You can be strategic and still need support. You can be high-achieving and still long to be seen.

Leadership isn’t about appearing invincible. It’s about building something enduring, and that includes your well-being.

Additional Tip for Black Men: Embrace solitude as preparation not punishment.

Solution Shift: Reframe lonely seasons as sacred space for growth. Use moments of solitude to restore your energy and sharpen your vision. This is the time to invest in yourself through rest, reflection, and strategic planning. When you show up renewed, you are better equipped to build the kind of leadership that invites connection instead of isolation.

Closing Thoughts:

In summary, you weren’t meant to lead alone. To every brother reading this who’s holding it all together while feeling increasingly alone, this is your invitation. Not to stop leading, but to start leading differently.

Your vision matters. Your presence matters. Your wholeness matters.

And if nobody else has said it lately, let me be the one to remind you: You’re not alone. You never were.

Let’s rebuild the summit together.

That’s the new path forward.

Subscribe to the Vision Leadership for LIFE newsletter now for early access, if you want your insider guidebook before it drops, exclusive insights, and first access when pre-orders to my book when it goes live.

Fellas, your journey is both unique and powerful. If you’re ready to start leading from your authentic edge, then your on the roadmap for greatness. When you’re leading from within, you are not only advancing your career but also paving the way for future leaders.

Feel free to reach out for personalized coaching or share your success stories.

Your success is our shared triumph.

Real Talk: If you’re ready to:

• Reclaim your voice in high-stakes spaces.

• Lead with strategy, not survival.

• Build a legacy that doesn’t require you to perform to belong.

You don’t have to lose yourself to lead. You just have to reclaim who you are, and lead from there.

Have a POWERFUL Day!

Dominic George

Founder, Vision Leadership for LIFE, LLC

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