The Iron Lady and the Stress Arch

When Norman Tebbit died in late 2024, 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 corner office, partnership meeting, and boardroom. 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 - relationship management, strategic thinking, the delicate art of delegation. 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 Deloitte study discovered that over 80% of senior leaders reported exhaustion consistent with burnout risk. The descent often starts before anyone outside the corner office notices the shift.

Why Gravity Always Wins

Three forces work against leaders over time, each imperceptible at first but cumulatively devastating.

Decisions accumulate enemies faster than allies. Sociologist Robert Michels called this the Iron Law of Oligarchy: every strategic choice creates winners and losers. 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. The mathematics become inexorable: make enough decisions, and you will eventually have more critics than supporters.

Yet here lies a 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.

Skills that secured promotion become obstacles to sustained leadership. Technical brilliance morphs into micromanagement. Solo execution becomes bottleneck creation. The legal mind that spots every contractual risk may struggle with the strategic ambiguity that deals require. Marshall Goldsmith captured this perfectly in What Got You Here Won't Get You There - most leaders discover the transition only after stumbling through it, wondering why approaches that once delivered success now generate frustration.

Information overload reaches a breaking point. Here lies a modern paradox: digital connectivity promised to make leadership more efficient, but it has transformed every colleague into a potential real-time critic. Twenty-four-hour connectivity delivers chaos disguised as control. Email and messaging don't 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. Constant vigilance drains the mental reserves that actual leadership demands.

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.

Modern leadership culture compounds this isolation through its demands for transparency and accessibility. Every decision must be explained, every choice defended in real time. This very openness - designed to build trust - may actually accelerate the stress arch by transforming private disagreements into public position-taking. Where once critics might have grumbled quietly, they now feel compelled to stake out visible positions.

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.

Consider the mathematics: the average FTSE 100 CEO now serves approximately six years. For most senior professionals, the window of unchallenged authority barely spans two parliamentary terms. Yet the complexity of modern leadership - regulatory oversight, stakeholder management, technological disruption - has never been higher.

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.

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.

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.

Keep dissenting voices inside the tent. Actively seek contrary perspectives before they walk away frustrated. Create formal mechanisms - rotating advisory roles, structured feedback sessions, devil's advocate positions - that channel disagreement productively. Critics cost less as employees than as external activists or replacement sycophants.

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 this 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.

The wise ones start planning their landing whilst altitude remains, with time to choose their trajectory and grace to execute it well.