The higher you rise in your career, the fewer peers you have …and the pressure to appear composed and decisive only grows. It’s no wonder they say it’s lonely at the top.
One of the most meaningful antidotes for leadership loneliness for me has been Rising Women in Biotech.
We’re a small group of women leaders in life sciences and diagnostics who meet quarterly. On the surface, it looks like a leadership roundtable. In reality, it’s become a circle of trust, a place to bring career transitions, tough decisions, and the sticky points that are hard to navigate alone.
The funny thing is, it started with a simple email I sent out. Some of the women I knew well, others I had only met once or twice. We were joking about that email recently and how something so small became a group that now feels indispensable (at least to me).
That’s the power of peer circles: they don’t need to be complicated. They just need intention and trust.
Leaders often underestimate how much their own connection needs shape the cultures they create. If we’re isolated, we risk cascading isolation down the org.
But if we model the opposite — building our own scaffolds of trust and perspective — we give others permission to do the same.
AI could make this easier too:
- Peer Circle Curator: imagine downloading your contacts from LinkedIn, uploading them to an AI tool, and having it suggest potential circle members who share values, challenges, or experiences, including people you might not think to invite.
- Reflection Prompts: AI can also help capture what you take away from these conversations, turning raw insights into stories or reminders you can carry back to your teams.
Culture mirrors the top. If leaders are too busy to be human, teams will be too. But when we invest in our own connection, we create the conditions for everyone else to thrive.
Question for you: Who would you include if you sent that one email to start your own circle of trust?
