Analog leaders in a digital world. Evolve or go.

Age does not equal wisdom.

Recently, during a reverse mentoring session, a 27-year-old, immensely capable and very frustrated charity professional said this:

“Age doesn’t equate to wisdom anymore.?When I look at my boss, I see someone who isn’t even asking the right questions, let alone finding the right answers.?She’s out of date.?It’s frustrating for us when we’re locked out of big discussions and decisions because we don’t have 20 years of experience. Two years of digital native experience is now worth more than 10 years of memories from an analogue age. The days where your elders knew best are finished.?People who grew up in an era with 3 TV channels, no technology and who contributed towards many of the problems we’re now trying to fix are not the people who should be leading the charity sector today.?They need to move over or involve us in the big decisions”.

To be honest it felt like a punch in the gut.?I am one of those people who grew up with 3 TV channels, no technology and used enough hairspray in the 1980’s to have a significant impact on climate change.?My first response was a counterattack.?Our experience is not useless.?We’re not ready to be put out to pasture yet.?At 54 I still have wisdom to impart and value to add.?Surely age and experience count for something.

It’s a revolution, but not as we know it!

We are in the thick of the fourth industrial revolution.?According to the World Economic Forum:

“The speed, breadth and depth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organisations create value and even what it means to be human”.

Those of us who grew up with and were schooled in linear, sequential thinking and problem solving should throw away our playbooks now.?Today’s world is not experiencing a linear, sequential revolution, it’s an exponential one.?The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. Previous rules do not apply.?

As far back as 2016 Klaus Schwab gave a loud, clear and important message that is as relevant today as it was in the pre-covid era:

“Today’s decision-makers are too often trapped in traditional, linear thinking, or too absorbed by the multiple crises demanding their attention, to think strategically about the forces of disruption and innovation shaping our future”.

Maybe there’s something in this 27-year-old’s outburst after all.

Traditional leadership no longer required

Let’s talk about Cognitive Readiness Competencies.?Advanced thinking skills and mental preparation that equip leaders to face and thrive on complex, dynamic, unpredictable, ill-defined challenges in the highly disruptive digital environment.?Sattar Bawany explains that the traditional, linear leadership qualities we have been taught thus far won’t cut it in 4IR:

“Though some traditional leadership capabilities still remain critical to successfully lead in the digital era (e.g. creating and communicating a clear vision, motivating and empowering others, etc.), there are also new requirements for leaders at all levels of the organisation. These demand a dynamic combination of a new mindset and behaviours, digital knowledge and skills that are critical to lead teams in the digital era”.

For analogue natives like me, taught to lead in slower, less tech-driven times this is going to be a stretch.?It will be less challenging for digital natives a few generational categories behind me, raised in this tumultuous tech-driven unpredictability.

With over half of the world’s population under the age of 30, can tail-end Boomers and Gen Xers ever really claim to have enough insight into this statistically significant cohort to be the architects of their future in the same way that our elders were architects of ours? How has that approach worked for us so far? Is it really OK to lock young people out of the room when we make big decisions because they lack time-defined experience or seniority??Are they on the margins of decisions that they are better equipped and better mandated than their elders to make? Less than 3% of charity trustees are under 30, so the sector has a long way to go before it can claim that it welcomes young people into the room to make the highest level of governance and strategic decisions.

In a political environment, Kofi Annan had a message for global leaders who served multiple terms:

“My own advice to people who would be in office for two or three terms is that they must accept democratic rotation. Ideally not put themselves up for re-election and allow the system to work”.

What advice would he have for charity leaders who are keeping the sector’s biggest chairs warm for the equivalent of multiple terms?

Don’t throw the Boomers out with the bathwater.

Clearly, I do not advocate ageist leadership recruitment practices, or ousting experienced leaders. That would be illegal, unethical and stupid. But my mentor had a point when she said that older leaders must work much harder to understand and adopt the new, non-traditional leadership approach needed for the future.?If people like me are going to earn the right to hold leadership roles that will set the foundations for sector leaders like my mentor, we must move away from the traditional leadership approach we have been taught.

S Ramesh Shankar’s beautiful blog, Leadership Transition – Analog to the Digital Age brilliantly captures how Gen Xers like me will have to change if we are to remain in the big chairs, wield influence and still add value. He has a few tips:

• Move to sequential planning instead of parallel planning
• Abandon pyramidical hierarchies for team-based systems.
• Perspirational leaders are better than aspirational ones.?Power doesn’t come with status, it comes with hard work.
• Don’t seek clarity, work through constant ambiguity.
• Long term planning is impossible.?Agree a direction of travel then adopt a quarter se, quarter tak approach for maximum adaptability.
• Lead into the unknown.?The known no longer exists.?Get comfortable with that.

Better still, recognise that in the midst of 4IR, age and time-defined experience does not necessarily mean wisdom.?And traditional leadership, if left unchecked, could be catastrophic. In this changing world, we need our younger colleagues more than ever before, to make sure that we hand over a sector fit for the future, not the past. Don’t lock them out of the leadership room.?They won’t wait outside for much longer.