Mental Health
Nick Jonsson on why executive loneliness ends when leaders speak up
In a keynote for the Danish Association Business Singapore, Nick Jonsson traces how job losses, hidden anxiety and alcohol pushed him to rock bottom, and why telling the truth to one person started his recovery.
Nick Jonsson - Keynote: Executive Loneliness at DABS ( Danish Association Business Singapore)
Video from EGN - Executives' Global Network.
Generated from the canonical interview transcript and validated against source data by Guests on Air.
How can senior executives overcome executive loneliness?
Nick Jonsson's answer is to speak up early. He describes how hiding job losses, anxiety and drinking behind a successful image led to a breakdown, and how telling one trusted person, then seeing doctors, psychologists and coaches, turned his health around within a year. Honest conversations, he argues, are what keep isolated leaders safe.
Executive loneliness is the topic Nick Jonsson brought to the Danish Association Business Singapore, and it grew out of his work with senior executives at EGN. The more honest those conversations became, the more he realised how many leaders were quietly struggling and keeping their troubles to themselves. An anonymous survey followed, and its results, he said, were quite shocking.
Rather than open with data, he opened with his own story. Over a decade in Asia he lost jobs in Vietnam and Indonesia, hid his fear from his family, turned to alcohol and finally crashed. He tells it in public, he explained, because a leader who goes first gives others permission to be honest about what is really going on.
The keynote also carries a loss. A friend and colleague in Singapore, who looked happy on the outside, took his own life. That death pushed Jonsson to work with the Samaritans of Singapore on a campaign to end executive loneliness, and it frames the central message of the talk: speaking honestly to even one or two people can save a life.
Key takeaways
- Executive loneliness often hides behind visible success, so the people closest to a leader may never see the struggle.
- Hiding a job loss and his anxiety to look strong deepened Nick Jonsson's isolation and led him toward alcohol.
- Recovery began when he told one person the truth, then built a team of doctors, psychologists and coaches.
- When leaders are open about their own struggles, colleagues and friends often respond by sharing what is happening in their lives.
1. How success can hide a crisis
Jonsson's career looked like steady progress. As an expatriate in Ho Chi Minh City he rose to national sales director and was in line to run a country business, until a clash with a new managing director ended in his dismissal. That evening his then wife told him she was pregnant. He was far from home, with no safety net and a work permit tied to the company.
He chose to cope alone. He did not tell his parents in Sweden or anyone else what had happened, wanting to prove he could find a new job by himself. Behind the scenes, he said, he was scared and alone, and it was the first time he experienced serious anxiety and sleepless nights. The pattern repeated after a later role in Jakarta ended when the company was sold.
Even when the next job went well, the fear stayed. He described dreading every email from his boss in case it meant another termination, and eventually resigning before anyone could fire him, despite being told he was doing well. Executive loneliness, in his telling, is not about being physically alone. It is carrying a crisis that no one around you is allowed to see.
2. The cost of keeping it inside
After that resignation Jonsson went through very dark days. Alcohol replaced exercise as his way to relax, and the habit continued after EGN relocated him to Singapore in 2018, by which time he had gained a lot of weight. A badly swollen foot that doctors assumed was broken turned out, once he saw a psychologist, to be a psychosomatic reaction to stress and anxiety.
He remembers lying in bed in March 2018 with his heart racing, feeling that life was over. He wrote his will so his family would receive what little he had. Just as things began to turn, a friend and colleague took his own life, a man who had recently fulfilled a dream at Everest base camp and looked happy in every photo he shared.
That loss is why Jonsson now tells his story in public. Neither he nor the man's own brother had any idea anything was wrong. Jonsson contacted the Samaritans of Singapore, a suicide prevention charity, and set up a campaign to raise awareness of the stigma around mental health. His argument is simple: when a struggling person speaks to one or two people, their life can be kept safe.
3. Speaking up and building support
The turnaround began with honesty. Jonsson told his new wife what was going on, the first person in years he had been fully open with, and admitted to himself that he had a drinking problem. He then saw doctors and psychologists, hired fitness and nutrition coaches, found support in a volunteer group for people with drinking problems, and tracked his sleep and weight with simple devices.
The plan started small, with short daily walks, and within months he was jogging, cycling and learning to swim with a coach. Around a year after lying in bed barely able to walk, he completed Ironman Sweden: a long swim, a long ride and a full marathon. He stresses that recovery did not cost much money, only the willingness to ask for help and stay accountable.
The habit held during the pandemic, when travel rules kept his son in Sweden and resentment crept back. Instead of drinking, he returned to his support group and saw a family therapist, who suggested playing online games with his son. Readers who want his wider framework can turn to his book, Executive Loneliness: The 5 Pathways to Overcoming Isolation, Stress, Anxiety & Depression in the Modern Business World.
