Lonely Leadership
There's Only Room for One in the Big Chair
Joe Brady stood at the podium during his first press conference as head coach of the Buffalo Bills and broke down in tears.
Not because of the promotion. Not because of the opportunity to lead an NFL franchise. Not because of Josh Allen or the Super Bowl window or any of the things you'd expect a new head coach to talk about.
He cried talking about his wife.
"This job demands sacrifice," Brady said. "I'm calling you on the way to a game while you're going into labor. I find out after the game, you've given birth by yourself. This game takes away time, energy, and presence from you."
His wife Lauren gave birth alone while he was coaching a football game. And when he found out, he couldn't leave. Couldn't rush to the hospital. Couldn't be there for the first moments of his daughter's life.
Because that's the job.
The Trade That Doesn't Get Any Headlines
We celebrate these guys. We analyze their play-calling, debate their decisions, criticize their clock management. We watch their press conferences and judge their demeanor.
What we don't talk about is what they give up to be there.
NFL coaches work 100-plus hour weeks during the season. Some sleep in their offices to eliminate the commute home. They arrive before sunrise and leave after midnight. They get three hours with their families on Friday if they're lucky. In the media leadup two weeks before winning the Superbowl, Seattle Seahawks, Mike Macdonald admitted he only gets about 30 minutes per week with his baby boy.
John Harbaugh once documented his weekly schedule. He got six to seven hours of sleep a night and spent about three hours with his family on Fridays. That was it. That was the week.
And Harbaugh is one of the successful ones. One of the guys who figured out how to win while maintaining some semblance of balance.
Most don't even get that.
Vicious Math
Here's the brutal arithmetic of NFL coaching:
You have 168 hours in a week. If you're working 100 of them—and most coaches work more—you've got 68 left for everything else. Sleep, eating, showering, commuting. Family.
Let's say you sleep six hours a night. That's 42 hours. You're down to 26.
Now factor in meals, travel to and from the facility, the basic maintenance of being a functioning human. You're lucky if you've got 15 hours left for your spouse, your kids, your life outside of football.
Fifteen hours. Across seven days. That's two hours a day if you're hyper-efficient.
And that's during the regular season. During the playoffs? During training camp? Forget it. You're gone.
What Excellence Costs
Mike Pettine, after being fired by the Browns, said the first thing he did was reconnect with family. "Football's a business where your schedule makes it very easy to lose time with your family."
Easy. That's the word he used. Easy.
Not "makes it hard to see your family." Makes it easy to lose them.
Because that's what happens. You don't consciously choose football over your family. You just keep choosing football first, every single day, until one day you look up and realize your kids are grown and your marriage is held together by someone else's sacrifice, not your presence.
Both Andy Reid and Tony Dungy lost children. Both were described as absentee fathers. These are Hall of Fame coaches. Winners. Deeply respected in football circles and the best at what they do.
And they'll tell you themselves: they paid a price for that excellence that no amount of winning can make up for.
The Culture That Glorifies This
Brian Billick once said: "The game glorifies the workaholic coach." Then at the same time they say, "What kind of husband and father are you?"
Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
The industry demands this sacrifice and then judges you for making it. It celebrates coaches who sleep in their offices and then wonders why their marriages fall apart.
When Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah took two weeks of paternity leave after the birth of his first child in 2023—working remotely during that time—rival executives and coaches were in disbelief.
Disbelief. Not because he left for two weeks. Because he took any time at all.
That's the standard. That's the expectation. You don't leave. You don't miss. You don't prioritize anything—not your wife, not your kids, not their birth or their birthday or their graduation—over the team.
It's Not Just Football
Before you think this is just an NFL problem, let me tell you: it's not.
It's any organization where excellence is the standard and the competition is ruthless. Where the people at the top got there by outworking everyone else. Where "balance" is treated like a luxury, not a necessity.
Law firms. Investment banks. Startups in hypergrowth. Tech companies racing to ship. Medical residencies. Elite consulting firms.
The specifics change. The dynamic doesn't.
You want to be the best? You want to lead at the highest level? Here's the cost: you're going to miss things. Important things. Things you can't get back.
Your kid's first steps because you were on a client call.
Your anniversary because you were closing a deal.
The birth of your child because you were coaching a game that, if we're being honest, didn't actually matter more than being there.
But you went anyway. Because that's what winners do. That's what the job demands.
The Question We Should Be Asking
Here's what I keep coming back to: Is it worth it?
Not "can you do it?" Obviously you can. People do it all the time. I did it. They sacrifice their families, their health, their lives outside of work, and they achieve extraordinary things.
But is it worth it?
Brady stood at that podium and thanked his wife for carrying the weight of his ambition. For being alone when she needed him most. For raising their kids without him being present.
And he got the job. He's a head coach in the NFL at 36 years old. He's got a chance to win a Super Bowl. He's living the dream.
But he missed the birth of his daughter.
No amount of winning changes that. No championship makes up for not being there. You can't get that moment back. It's gone.
The Real Leadership Test
The hardest decisions in leadership aren't the ones you make at work. They're the ones you make about work.
Whether to take the promotion that means more money but less time.
Whether to travel for the client meeting or stay home for the school play.
Whether to answer the email at 10 PM or put the phone down and be present with your family.
Most leaders I know—the successful ones, the ones everyone points to as examples—got there by consistently choosing work. By being available 24/7. By treating every request like an emergency and every opportunity like it's the last one they'll ever get.
And it works. Until it doesn't.
Until you're standing at a press conference talking about how your wife gave birth alone. Or you're sitting in a therapist's office trying to figure out why your teenagers don't talk to you anymore. Or your family is a footnote to your career accomplishments in your eulogy.
What the Winners Won't Tell You
Most of the people at the top aren't happy.
They're accomplished. They're respected. They've got the titles and the money and the recognition.
But they're not happy. They're lonely. They're disconnected. They've won at work and lost everywhere else.
And the really brutal part? They can't even complain about it. Because they chose this. They knew the deal. Everyone knows the deal.
You want to play at the highest level? This is the cost. Don't like it? Step aside. There are a hundred people behind you who will make the sacrifice you won't.
That's the message. That's the culture. That's the game. I've seen it. I've lived it.
A Different Kind of Courage
I'm not here to tell you what to choose. That's your call. Your life. Your priorities.
But I am here to tell you this: choosing your family over your career—choosing to be present over being promoted—takes a different kind of courage than anything you'll do at work.
It takes courage to leave the office at 5 PM when everyone else is staying late.
It takes courage to say no to the opportunity that would require you to be gone more than you're home.
It takes courage to prioritize being at your kid's game over being at the client meeting.
Because the organization won't celebrate you for it. Your boss won't give you credit for it. Your peers won't respect you for it.
They'll just replace you with someone who will make the sacrifice you wouldn't.
The Question You Have to Answer
So, with all that said: What does winning actually mean to you?
Is it the title? The salary? The recognition from people who don't actually know you?
Or is it being there for the people who matter most when they need you?
Joe Brady is a head coach in the NFL. He's 36 years old. He's going to make millions of dollars. He's got a chance to do something that only 32 people in the world get to do at any given time.
And his wife gave birth alone.
You tell me if that's winning.
Threading the Needle
There's a third option that nobody talks about because it's harder than either extreme.
You can pursue excellence without sacrificing everything. You can be great at your job without being absent from your life. You can lead at a high level without destroying the relationships that matter most.
But it requires something most people won't do: setting boundaries. Saying no. Accepting that you might not get to the absolute top because you're not willing to pay the absolute cost.
And that's fine. That's not failure. That's just a different definition of success.
"Nobody on their deathbed wishes they'd spent more time at the office." Just because it's a cliche doesn't mean it's not true. Nobody looks back on their life and thinks, "I'm glad I missed my daughter's birth for that game in December."
But plenty of people look back and realize they gave their best years to an organization that replaced them the moment they couldn't produce anymore. And then wonder why their family feels like strangers.
The Ultimate KPI
Leadership isn't measured by how many hours you work.
It's not measured by how many titles you accumulate or how much money you make or how many people report to you.
It's measured by whether the people who matter most in your life—your spouse, your kids, your parents, your closest friends—feel like you were actually there for them.
Not just physically present. Actually there. Engaged. Present. Available.
And if you're honest with yourself, you already know the answer.
So the question isn't whether you can do both. The question is whether you're willing to.
Because the job will always demand more. The organization will always ask for more. The competition will always be willing to give more.
But your family? They just want you.
Not the title. Not the money. Not the version of you that shows up exhausted at midnight.
Just you.
The choice is yours. But don't lie to yourself about what you're choosing.