The Weight of the Role

Why Those in the Most Visible Positions Have the Fewest Places to Be Vulnerable

It’s 11pm. You’re about to go to sleep, and suddenly you’re wracked with anxiety about a client, a contract, a comms crisis, or your inner critic.

You lie in bed and the voices, that “inner committee”, are going round and round on the ‘should-haves’, the ‘could haves ’, the worries and the supposed failures.

Eventually you fall asleep and wake up the next day ready to take on the world. Your day is filled with meetings, decisions, conversations, and commitments. And you show up. You always show up. Prepared. Confident. Determined. To everyone, you appear to be living the dream. On the inside, it feels heavier than that. Both can be true at the same time.

As I was thinking about this, I came across a quote from Kelly Allison, founder and CEO of KVA, a multi-hyphenate digital agency. She spoke to Stylist magazine about the reality of being in a position where your role is visible, your identity is attached to an entity and an outcome, and where vulnerability can feel like a risk, because the very people looking to you for confidence may not know what to do when they see your uncertainty.

She said: “The most unglamorous aspect is the loneliness of it... the fact that the buck stops with you every single time. There are decisions you cannot share with your team because it would unsettle them, and that the weight of being responsible for other people’s livelihoods sits with you in a way that does not clock off at the end of the day.”

Loneliness. I felt that.

Many people who have held positions of responsibility understand it. They may not talk about it openly and honestly, but they feel it. Viscerally. It’s the loneliness of being the person others look to for credibility, confidence, and ultimately, certainty.

It’s the person who is expected to have the answers, know the direction.  The person who is expected to make decisions and isn’t expected to falter in any way. The person who often feels they cannot say, ‘I’m not sure,’ let alone, ‘I don’t know.’ And while the best leaders know they don’t have all the answers—and don’t pretend to—there is still a particular weight that comes with being the person ultimately accountable for the decisions that are made and the consequences that follow.

For 20 years, I worked as a journalist. Sixteen of those years were spent on air—as a reporter and anchor, first in local news in Toronto and later at CNN.

It was a role built around visibility, expectation and trust. My job was to walk into a studio, often in moments of uncertainty and unfolding events, and communicate with clarity and composure. Credibility was not something you could take for granted. It was built through preparation, presence and the ability to remain steady when the circumstances around you were anything but.

I covered moments of enormous uncertainty—from catastrophic world events to unexpected interviews with world leaders. I experienced the pressure of live television, where there was no opportunity to edit or rewind, where a technical failure could leave you sitting in silence with thousands, sometimes millions, of people watching (“dead air” is something every broadcaster dreads). But the reality was that the audience did not need to see the uncertainty. They needed to trust that the person in front of them could handle it. And so I learned to do what the role required. I prepared. I stayed composed. I showed up.

When people watched me, they saw the finished product. They saw the person sitting behind the desk, asking the questions, delivering the news.

What they did not see was everything that came before that moment. The preparation. The pressure. The questions I asked myself. The moments of uncertainty and insecurity that existed alongside the confidence I had built. The times when life outside the newsroom felt complicated, painful or overwhelming, yet I still walked through those doors and did the job.

There were personal challenges, health concerns and the complexities of working in an environment where reputation, relationships and judgement mattered. But the expectation remained the same: you show up. You perform. You give people confidence in you because that is part of the responsibility you have chosen to carry.

The context may be different in every profession, but the experience is often familiar: being the person others trust to remain steady when circumstances are uncertain. And that is the strange thing about roles where perception matters. The very qualities that helped me succeed—my ability to stay composed, think clearly and handle pressure—also made it almost impossible for others to notice when I was struggling. Nor did I feel it was right for my inner struggles to even be noticed.

I wasn't pretending. I simply became very skilled at carrying what could not be seen.

Over time, I realised that one of the hardest things about being in a demanding role is not always the responsibility itself. It is having very few places where you can speak honestly about what that responsibility feels like; what it costs. It’s not because there aren’t people who care about you. There usually are. But because there are very few people who understand the particular reality you are living inside; the complexity of living inside a role that is visible, carries weight and has consequences. A role where, on the surface at least, there appears to be no room for the very human experience of uncertainty, fear or doubt. Whom could you talk to? Where can you go to say out loud, “I don’t feel like I know what I am doing?” or “What if I get it wrong?” or “I feel like I am failing.” Where can you go where it is safe to say those things and know there will be no judgement or consequences?

When I left the world of visibility and perceived prestige, I decided to become what I needed most: someone who understood the specific experience I was living. I was very aware of what it means to carry a highly visible role and all the expectations that come with it. I always thought about how life could have been different if I had someone who understood and had the skills to help me manage the other face of success.

It is a big part of the work I do now.

The people I coach are inherently capable. They have built incredible careers and lives through intelligence, resilience and determination. They are used to solving problems and carrying responsibility. But even the most capable people have many moments of doubt and need somewhere they can just exhale emotionally and mentally. And feel less alone.

The goal is not to transform people to never doubt themselves, never feel insecure or no longer hear the internal voices that question and challenge them. Those voices are part of being human. The goal is to help people trust themselves enough that those voices no longer dictate their decisions.

I think that is something we underestimate. The higher people rise, the less they feel they can talk about what it is costing them to be who they are. The judgement, the criticism, the quiet questioning of whether we’re even capable of doing the job if we feel this way—all add to the weight of responsibility and the cognitive load already being carried.

It is entirely possible to be surrounded by intelligent, generous, supportive people and still feel you have nowhere to say the things that keep you awake at 11pm. We can be surrounded by people; we can belong to clubs, communities and networks. We can have wonderful friends, family, and supportive colleagues. And still feel profoundly alone. Because being seen is not the same as being understood. Because what many people in positions of responsibility are looking for is not simply company. They are looking for a place where they no longer have to protect the role they occupy, a place where they can safely set down the weight of the role they carry.

For me, coaching is not just about exploring strategies and tools. It isn’t about helping people become a “better version/leader”. It is about building a relationship where a client feels they can simply be themselves. It is about having the conversations they don't feel able to have elsewhere, where those 11pm questions can finally be spoken out loud and understood, rather than carried alone.

It is about creating the emotional safety to sit with discomfort, uncertainty, frustration or self-doubt without rushing to fix any of it. Because what we keep carrying silently often grows heavier than it needs to be. Once it is named, explored and understood, there is space to move through it rather than remain stuck inside it. From that place, we can respond to life’s challenges with greater clarity, perspective and self-trust. And perhaps what emerges is not a different version of ourselves, but a more whole one: the leader who can make decisions without being consumed by doubt, the partner or parent who can be present beyond the demands of the role, the colleague who can support others without losing themselves in the process.

Perhaps that is what we underestimate about responsibility. It is not the work itself that wears us down, but the belief that we have to carry it alone.

We all need somewhere we can put down the weight for a while. Somewhere we do not have to perform certainty, protect our reputation or have all the answers. Because sometimes the greatest strength is not carrying more. It is knowing where it is safe to put some of it down.