The Iron Lady and the Stress Arch

When Norman Tebbit died in 2025, many reflected on his political insights. Perhaps none were sharper than his observation about the mathematics of power. Working for Margaret Thatcher, he watched the list of former ministers she had dismissed grow steadily larger - alongside those who had hoped for promotion but never received it. Sooner or later, Tebbit noted, any prime minister accumulates more enemies than friends. The arithmetic is inevitable.

What makes this observation unsettling is how universal it proves. Strip away the Westminster context, and the same dynamics operate in every boardroom, partnership meeting, and executive suite. Power may intoxicate, but it also isolates - and in ways that catch even the most accomplished leaders off guard.

The Stress Arch

A colleague once sketched this trajectory as a simple arch. Law firm partners, he observed, begin their senior careers stressed: new responsibilities, imposter syndrome, frantic client development. The early years demand skills they have never tested. The transition from technical excellence to leadership often feels like learning a foreign language.

At the apex, confidence and mastery emerge. This is the golden period: income peaks, recognition arrives, influence expands. The stress of early promotion gives way to the satisfaction of genuine competence. These leaders know their markets, trust their instincts, and command respect from colleagues and clients alike.

But the arch bends downward inevitably. Energy dips, younger rivals press closer, small setbacks sting more deeply than they once did. The shape begins and ends with tension; only the middle feels weightless.

Perhaps this explains why a 2021 study by Deloitte Canada and LifeWorks found that 82% of senior leaders reported exhaustion indicative of burnout risk. The descent often starts before anyone outside the executive suite notices the shift.

The Mathematical Inevitability

Sociologist Robert Michels understood this pattern when he formulated his Iron Law of Oligarchy over a century ago: every strategic choice creates winners and losers, but the mathematics skew against leaders. The winners move on to new challenges; the losers remember. A managing partner who restructures departments may save the firm millions, but displaced colleagues carry that grievance forward - to networking events, to recruitment conversations, to partnership votes. Make enough decisions, and you will eventually have more critics than supporters.

Yet here lies the cruel irony: the more successful leaders become at removing obstacles and solving problems, the fewer people remain willing to tell them about emerging ones. Excellence in leadership gradually eliminates the very feedback mechanisms that created that excellence.

Marshall Goldsmith captured part of this dynamic in What Got You Here Won't Get You There - the skills that secured promotion become obstacles to sustained leadership. But there is a deeper psychological dimension Goldsmith does not fully explore.

Most leaders built their reputations on genuine expertise. But leadership inexorably separates them from the detailed work that made their name. Years pass. The technical edge dulls. The instincts that once felt razor-sharp now feel uncertain.

This creates a profound identity crisis. These leaders know that what they really respect - and what they once respected in themselves - is now a distant memory. Their credibility increasingly rests not on what they can do, but on who they are: their title, their executive status, their accumulated influence. They become dependent on role power rather than personal competence, and they know it.

This awareness breeds a particular kind of anxiety. When your entire identity shifts from "I am great because I can do things others cannot" to "I am important because of my position," every challenge to that position feels existential. They guard their status more jealously precisely because their identity has become thinner, more fragile. What makes them distinctive now is not capability but hierarchy - and deep down, they know that is a weaker foundation than what they once possessed.

Meanwhile, constant connectivity has transformed every colleague into a potential real-time critic. Digital tools do not merely increase information volume - they multiply the chances of missing something critical whilst creating instant feedback loops for every decision. Every delayed response feeds narratives of disconnect; every missed detail becomes evidence of decline. The speed of modern communication means that yesterday's private disagreements become today's public position-taking.

The Isolation Trap

Here lies the crucial difference between political and corporate leadership. Politicians must live with dismissed ministers who occupy nearby benches, offering daily reminders of past conflicts. Corporate leaders can remove dissenters entirely - an apparent advantage that becomes its own trap.

Departed colleagues reappear as competitors, commentators, or activist voices. More dangerously, their absence eliminates early-warning systems about brewing problems. The inner circle grows smaller and more deferential precisely when external pressure intensifies. Leaders lose their truth-tellers just when they need them most.

The mathematics are sobering: recent data shows that FTSE 100 CEOs now serve an average of 5.6 years. For most senior professionals, the window of unchallenged authority barely exceeds a single parliamentary term. Yet the complexity of modern leadership - regulatory oversight, stakeholder management, technological disruption - has never been higher.

But the real trap is psychological. These leaders know the world is moving faster than their experience can match. They understand that people are incentivised to see them fail. They recognise that it has been years since they were in the trenches, making their authority increasingly dependent on seniority rather than expertise. This breeds an internal worry about their authenticity - and they guard their status more preciously, becoming hypersensitive to any threat to their image.

Reading the Room

Understanding this dynamic transforms how we interpret senior behaviour. That managing partner who seems increasingly defensive may not be paranoid - they may be rationally responding to genuine erosion of their support base. The CEO who obsesses over minor details might be compensating for the loss of trusted advisers who once flagged problems early.

These patterns reveal themselves long before the final act. Leaders begin consulting smaller circles, become more sensitive to criticism, and invest disproportionate energy in managing perception rather than driving performance. What looks like weakness from below often reflects the mathematical reality of accumulated opposition.

For those navigating these dynamics from below, this perspective offers both empathy and opportunity. The seemingly irrational behaviour of senior leaders often reflects predictable psychological pressures rather than personal failings. Understanding the stress arch helps decode actions that might otherwise seem arbitrary or defensive.

Designing a Different Descent

The stress arch appears inevitable, but leaders can influence its shape. Three principles emerge from studying those who managed graceful rather than catastrophic transitions.

First, invest early in relationships that decisions will strain. After difficult restructuring or partnership changes, spend time with affected people. Listen more than you justify. The conversations cost political capital immediately but prevent the slow-burn resentment that transforms former allies into persistent critics.

Second, keep dissenting voices inside the tent. Actively seek contrary perspectives before they walk away frustrated. Create formal mechanisms that channel disagreement productively, but do this discretely, maintaining your authority in public whilst creating private channels for honest challenge. Critics cost less as employees than as external activists.

Third, plan succession before urgency forces the issue. Leaders who shape their own transition retain influence and dignity. Those who cling until crisis hands control to others forfeit both. Begin identifying potential successors early, develop them actively, and create conditions where departure strengthens rather than destabilises the organisation.

The Longer View

For those earlier in their careers, this perspective offers both warning and opportunity. Ambition remains worthwhile, but understanding the complete transaction helps. Prestige and autonomy come bundled with public scorekeeping, constant scrutiny, and an expanding roster of critics. The skills that deliver promotion differ fundamentally from those that sustain leadership.

Most importantly, recognise the stress arch in your own trajectory. The nervousness of early leadership is normal and temporary. The confidence of peak performance is real but finite. The challenges of later leadership are predictable and therefore manageable.

The question is not whether you will face the pull of gravity - everyone does eventually - but whether you will design your descent or merely endure it. Even the Iron Lady could not escape the physics. What she, and we, can choose is the nature of the fall: an uncontrolled plunge that damages relationships and institutions, or a measured glide that leaves both stronger than we found them.

Understanding these dynamics does not eliminate them, but it does provide the clarity to navigate them with dignity intact. The wisest leaders begin charting their descent whilst altitude remains - not from defeat, but from the recognition that gravity is universal, and grace lies in using the height whilst you still possess it.