Bridging the Generational Gap: Leading Millennials and Gen Z in the Workplace

Do you find leading younger workers challenging??

I'm getting asked more and more about how to lead Millennials, Gen Z and now Gen Alpha effectively. Apparently, the next generations coming through are different, and harder to lead, requiring a different set of skills to engage and influence them.??

At the same time, I'm getting younger professionals asking me how to influence their executives - the old guard who are crusted onto the way they've always done things. They are just as frustrated as the Boomers and Gen X leaders above them.???

Consider one scenario I encountered recently as I was supporting a client in implementing their response to the new psychosocial hazards legislation introduced last year. A national professional services firm, the client was an interesting case study of intergenerational leadership challenges currently being faced by companies and leaders alike.???

In a session with several of the partners with this firm, I had one executive express his frustration. "I'm really struggling to get my head around the fact that I am now responsible for how my people feel and how much sleep they are getting. They should be responsible for their own well-being. If this is where the world is heading, I'm not sure there is a place in it for me."??

If you're reading that and thinking, 'That sounds like an old, privileged white male who is out of touch with the modern world', I want to reinforce that this individual was not a bad person. He was highly experienced in his industry and was trying his hardest to be as good a leader as best he knew how.??

GENERATIONAL LEADERSHIP FORMATION?

Formation, as it pertains to an individual, is a term that has fallen out of use in most modern circles. It refers to the experiences, influences and processes that helped 'form' the identity of an individual.??

Today, the majority of senior executives and leaders across the country are members of the Boomers and Gen X generations. Let's take a moment and consider what their formation was like. Their parents were likely to have experienced life during WWII, who knew severe hardship and showed little emotion. Their careers began under leaders who were likely to have had no leadership training, and who focused solely on hard work and productivity. They were expected to turn up to work, work hard, and do whatever was needed to get the job done. Now they are in leadership positions, they expect the same from their people.??

Consider now the formation of Millennials and Gen Z. In the last 40 years, there has been a wealth of research into figuring out what makes a great leader and what makes a great workplace - led primarily by my profession, organisational psychology. As a result, we know a lot more, and with the rise of social media, this knowledge has been dispersed far and wide.??

This means that Millennials and Gen Z have grown up with a steady diet of Simon Sinek speaking of trust and purpose; Brene Brown speaking about empathy and vulnerability; Amy Edmonson speaking about psychological safety; and Adam Grant speaking about generosity and unlocking potential in people. Having been told 'what good leadership is' and what a good workplace looks like, they have entered the workplace expecting to experience this 'good'.??

The previous generation is a product of their time. Just as the new generations are a product of theirs.?

And here's the rub… differing expectations. Younger people are expecting their leaders to be empathetic, communicating with vulnerability and a sense of purpose. They expect environments that are trusting, psychologically safe and have high degrees of flexibility to cater for individual needs, goals and motivations. These are all good things.??

Leaders belonging to older generations are expecting staff to turn up and do what is necessary with what they have to get the work done. These are also good things. But they are different.??

LET'S BE REAL, LET'S BE FAIR?

Not only are Gen Z disappointed when their leaders don't demonstrate the behaviours they expect, but they struggle when the environments created by these leaders don't meet their expectations. Yet in reality, the question that needs to be asked is, are these expectations realistic for older generations??

Is it realistic to expect that older generations lead in a way that is consistent with the messages of Simon Sinek and Brene Brown when they never heard these messages early in their career when their leadership identity was being formed? Or when they have never been trained this way, when their leadership role models were cut from a different cloth and they have never experienced what it's like to be led by someone who does lead this way???

If someone has never heard about a particular leadership style, they've never been trained in it, never seen it remodelled or experienced what it's like to be led in this way, it is unrealistic to expect those leaders, regardless of generation, to adopt that style of leadership.??

It's also unfair on them.??

However, this goes both ways. Is it realistic for younger generations to thrive in an environment that is unfamiliar to them and in many ways a product of a previous time? Is it realistic for them to learn about best practices and how leaders can unlock the potential in people, and then forget it and not wish to experience that type of leadership???

'The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.' - Ralph Waldo Emerson?

Would you expect a doctor being trained to use the latest aesthetic drugs, to accept being told to use ether on a rag? Not because more effective methods weren't available, but because the head surgeon was trained that way several decades earlier. It would be unrealistic to expect the young doctor to forget what he had learned and not fight for better practice.???

Just as it is unrealistic for most older leaders to be expected to lead in the way Millenials want them to, it is unrealistic and unfair to expect younger generations to hold the same expectations as Boomers and Gen Xers.??

THE WAY FORWARD?

Now that we understand the differences at play and the why behind many of the challenges that underpin intergenerational leadership, the question remains… what is the way forward???

I will outline more thoughts, strategies and tactics to help navigate these challenges in more detail over the coming weeks. However, at a high level, the solution is found in agility. Good leaders need to be agile, adapting their approaches to the changing context and to the people they lead. Older leaders must learn to develop a level of agility to meet some of the expectations of their younger workforces.??

At the same time, younger employees need to show agility as well. They need to learn to adapt their approach to being led by different types of leaders and learn to work effectively in different environments.??

Success for both older and younger generations lies in view of the opportunity that generational differences provide the chance to learn, grow and get better.??

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