When an executive moves up the hierarchal ladder in the organization, the promotion is often accompanied by an increasing sense of isolation and loneliness. Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee coined the phrase “CEO disease” to describe the isolation of top executives in their book Primal Leadership. It refers to an information vacuum around leaders, created when people withhold important and sometimes unpleasant information. Life is indeed lonely at the top. People may appear more reluctant to share.