Why Every Leader Needs an Affinity Group
It is well documented, anecdotally and otherwise, that leadership can be remarkably lonely.
Those who have read my recent reflections know this has become a recurring theme in some of my writing. I have written about the weight of difficult decisions, the emotional toll of the superintendency, the quiet burden of public scrutiny, the courage required to lead through uncertainty, and the ongoing challenge of becoming the leader each new season requires.
Those are lived realities; not abstract ones.
And while I have come to believe that leadership requires resilience, I do not believe resilience is something we are meant to develop alone.
In fact, I believe the opposite.
One of the greatest determinants of whether leaders remain healthy, hopeful, and effective over time is not simply their intelligence, experience, or work ethic.
It is whether they have people who truly understand what they carry.
People who remind them who they are when the work begins to convince them otherwise.
People who make leadership sustainable.
In other words…an affinity group.
We Were Never Meant to Carry This Alone
When I wrote my book, Roaches in My Cereal, I wasn’t simply telling the story of growing up in poverty.
I was telling the story of relationships.
Teachers.
Mentors.
Neighbors.
Adults who quietly stepped into my life at exactly the moments I needed them most.
Looking back, what changed my trajectory was not one extraordinary program.
It was ordinary people who consistently reminded me that I mattered.
They became my affinity group long before I had language for it.
That lesson has followed me throughout my life.
The people have changed.
The lesson has not.
Leadership Has a Way of Shrinking Your Circle
The higher we lead, the fewer the number of places we have to which we can retreat to be completely honest.
As superintendents, principals, executive leaders, and CEOs, people often look to us for certainty.
For confidence.
For answers.
For calm.
Rarely do they ask how we are carrying the weight.
Rarely do they see what leadership costs behind closed doors.
Rarely do they see the toll the performative nature of this work takes on us.
There are conversations we cannot have publicly.
There are fears we often hesitate to express.
There are disappointments we quietly absorb because we believe leadership requires us to protect everyone else from them.
Over time, something dangerous begins to happen.
Our circle becomes smaller…much smaller.
Not because people disappear.
But because we stop allowing people in.
We become surrounded by colleagues.
Acquaintances.
Stakeholders.
Board members.
Community members.
Yet feel profoundly alone.
I know that feeling. I lived that feeling. I still live that feeling.
And if I am honest, there have been seasons when I mistakenly believed isolation was simply part of the job.
I no longer believe that.
Affinity Is About More Than Shared Titles
When I use the phrase affinity group, I am not referring simply to people who hold the same position.
I am talking about people who understand your humanity.
People with whom explanation is unnecessary.
People who recognize your exhaustion before you say a word.
People who celebrate your victories without envy.
People who tell you the truth when everyone else tells you what they think you want to hear.
People who remind you of your purpose when criticism causes you to question it.
Sometimes those people are other superintendents.
Sometimes they are lifelong friends.
Sometimes they are mentors.
Sometimes they are family.
Sometimes they are former colleagues who have become something much more meaningful.
Their titles matter far less than their presence.
The Cost of Losing Them
One of the greatest dangers of leadership is not the criticism.
It is gradual disconnection.
It rarely happens all at once.
It happens one missed conversation at a time.
One canceled lunch.
One postponed phone call.
One conference skipped.
One friendship neglected.
One new presence that shifts the dynamics.
One vulnerable conversation replaced with another email.
Until one day we realize we are carrying extraordinary burdens with extraordinary solitude.
And solitude changes us.
It changes how we think.
How we sleep.
How we lead.
How we love.
How we recover.
The research is clear that chronic isolation is associated with higher rates of stress, anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease, and burnout. But long before those consequences become clinical, they become personal.
We become more cynical.
Less patient.
More reactive.
Less hopeful.
We begin confusing survival with leadership.
The cost of losing an affinity group is not simply loneliness.
It is losing the people who quietly protect us from becoming someone the work was never meant to make us.
Leadership Requires Places Where We Do Not Have to Perform
One of the greatest gifts an affinity group offers is permission.
Permission to stop performing.
Permission to set down the armor that leadership quietly requires us to wear.
Permission to shed the image that we have worked so diligently to cultivate.
Permission to admit uncertainty.
Permission to say:
“I don’t know.”
“I’m struggling.”
“That decision still keeps me awake.”
“I wish I had handled that differently.”
“I don’t have the answer today.”
“I’m not okay.”
“I need help.”
For many leaders, those words rarely find their way into public spaces.
Not because they are untrue.
But because leadership often demands something different.
It asks us to project confidence when we are questioning ourselves.
To offer hope when we are wrestling with disappointment.
To calm others while carrying our own anxiety.
To absorb criticism without allowing it to harden us.
To make decisions that affect thousands of lives while quietly wondering whether we got it right.
Over time, that emotional discipline becomes exhausting.
And if we are not careful, the role slowly becomes a performance.
Not a dishonest one.
But a constant one.
We begin believing we must always be the strongest person in the room.
Always composed.
Always optimistic.
Always certain.
Always available.
Always carrying everyone else’s burdens while convincing ourselves that asking someone to help carry ours would somehow diminish our leadership.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Leadership asks us to carry confidence into public spaces.
Affinity groups give us a place to carry honesty.
Leadership requires vision.
Affinity groups make room for vulnerability.
Leadership asks us to inspire others.
Affinity groups remind us that we need encouragement too.
Leadership often requires us to pour into others.
Affinity groups become the people who pour back into us.
Those realities are far from contradictory. They are complementary.
In fact, I would argue that one is impossible to sustain without the other.
Because every leader eventually reaches a moment when competence is no longer enough.
When experience is no longer enough.
When resilience, by itself, is no longer enough.
At that moment, what sustains us is not another book.
Not another conference.
Not another strategic plan.
It is the voice of someone who knows us well enough to remind us that before we were superintendents, principals, executives, or CEOs…
We were human beings. We were men or women. We were individuals who experienced trauma, challenge, and judgment.
And we still are.
Without those people, leadership eventually morphs into performance.
With them, leadership becomes sustainable.
And that may be one of the most important distinctions of all.
Sustainability Is Not an Individual Achievement
For too long, we have celebrated leaders who seem able to carry everything.
We admire endurance. We laud it.
Long hours.
Constant availability.
The appearance of having it all together.
But perhaps we have been celebrating the wrong things.
Perhaps the healthiest leaders are not the ones who carry the most.
Perhaps they are the ones who know where to set the weight down.
Who understand that strength is not measured by how much we can endure alone.
It is measured by our willingness to allow others to help carry us when we can no longer carry ourselves.
That is not weakness.
That is wisdom.
Looking Back
As I reflect on the different seasons of my life—from a little boy in Colonial Beach whose future was shaped by teachers who refused to let circumstances define him, to serving as a superintendent during some of the most complex years public education has experienced, to the new seasons of leadership that continue to unfold—I can see one constant.
I have never reached any meaningful destination alone.
Every chapter has included people who believed in me before I believed in myself.
People who challenged me.
Protected me.
Prayed for me.
Corrected me.
Encouraged me.
Listened when I had no answers.
Celebrated me without needing anything from me.
And reminded me that my title was never the most important thing about me.
Those relationships have sustained me every bit as much as my education, experience, or determination.
Perhaps even more.
As I have grown older, however, I have learned something equally important.
Affinity groups do not simply happen.
They must be cultivated.
Protected.
Maintained.
And, perhaps most importantly, safeguarded.
Not everyone who enters our professional lives is meant to enter our personal sanctuary.
Not everyone who applauds us is equipped to carry us.
Not everyone who seeks proximity to us has earned access to our vulnerability.
Affinity requires trust.
It requires reciprocity.
It requires people who care more about your well-being than your title.
People who will tell you the truth instead of what is convenient.
People who will celebrate your growth without becoming threatened by it.
People who will protect your confidence as carefully as they protect their own.
Over the years, I have also learned that affinity groups require intentional investment.
Busy calendars can quietly erode meaningful relationships.
Leadership responsibilities can crowd out the very people who help sustain us.
If we are not intentional, we begin scheduling meetings while forgetting to nurture the relationships that make those meetings possible.
We answer emails but miss phone calls from people who know our hearts.
We prepare presentations while neglecting conversations that restore our spirits.
That is a dangerous trade.
Because affinity groups are not simply people we enjoy being around.
They are people who help us remain whole.
They remind us who we were before the title.
They remind us who we are beneath the responsibility.
And when the work becomes overwhelming, they remind us who we can still become.
The older I become, the more convinced I am that one of the wisest things a leader can do is not simply build an affinity group—but fiercely protect it.
Because in a profession where so much asks us to give ourselves away, those relationships become the place where we are quietly put back together.
A Final Reflection
As leaders, we often ask ourselves difficult questions.
Am I making the right decisions?
Am I leading effectively?
Am I serving students well?
Those are important questions.
But perhaps there is another one we should ask ourselves more often.
Who is helping me remain whole while I do this work?
Because leadership is demanding.
The work is sacred.
The responsibility is immense.
But none of us were ever meant to carry it alone.
Long after people forget our titles…
Long after strategic plans are rewritten…
Long after board meetings end…
Long after the applause fades…
The people who sat beside us, prayed with us, challenged us, laughed with us, cried with us, and reminded us of our humanity will remain among the greatest gifts of our leadership journey.
Protect those people.
Invest in those people.
Become one of those people for someone else.
Because our affinity groups do more than make us better leaders.
They help us remain ourselves.
And in a profession that can quietly convince us to sacrifice pieces of who we are, that may be the greatest gift of all.
