A notice to business leaders: The workforce of tomorrow is watching you.

I entered the workforce in 2007. What I learned about “building a career” in the first 22 years of my life looked something like this:

• Find a good company, with a good reputation.
• Ensure there is a ladder to climb, with long-term growth potential.
• Entry-level work will probably suck. Embrace the suck and work hard.
• Some story about a plant worker who worked his way up for 30 years and eventually became an Executive of a Fortune 500 company.

I won’t get into my thoughts on our need for better workforce preparedness and education of young people here. But in the 2007 economy, these few insights would have been enough to set me on a course for success, as long as I just worked hard and kept my head down.

Then the U.S. housing market collapsed, the financial sector crumbled, and the foundation of the global economy went into a devastating downward spiral. And I had just landed in a role as a Recruiter in the staffing industry that turned out to be a fascinating front-row seat to the whole thing.

In the roughly 2-3 years that followed, I witnessed people of all qualifications, all pedigrees, and all tenures cut from their jobs. Some of these were people who had been with their company for 30+ years. They were some of the most highly skilled, highly educated, highly certified professionals in the workforce. These were loyal people who bought into the concept of putting the company first, subscribing to some “greater good” mission statement. They had turned down countless job opportunities out of a sense of loyalty that was both expected and unquestioned.

Seemingly overnight, companies who came to prominence by way of “employee-centric,” “only as strong as our people,” and “our people are our most valuable asset” mantras were cutting people by the tens, hundreds, or thousands without batting an eye. The outrage over corporate fiscal irresponsibility (highlighted by a severe lack of emergency funds / contingency planning) was exacerbated by the golden parachutes of ousted Executives. The curtain was pulled back, and what we all saw, we can’t unsee.

• When backed into a corner, businesses will do whatever is necessary to protect shareholder value and reward the folks at the top. Thank you, Milton Friedman.
• Employee loyalty will not be rewarded in-kind. Value trumps loyalty. And by “value,” I mean the money-in-the-pocket-that-you-can-count-type; we’re not talking “inner value” here.
• When times are good, they are good for most everyone. When times are tough, they are toughest on people at the bottom.

The result of the next 10 years, coinciding perfectly with the entrance of the Millennial population into the workforce, was a new generation of workers who questioned everything, who were more concerned with self-interest (and sometimes human interest) than corporate interest, and who upended the norms of our economy forever. Side hustles emerged as a means of diversifying income streams and insulating from overall catastrophe. Job opportunities were evaluated for their novelty and exposure to new skills, rather than their stability and reputation. Resumes turned non-traditional, and new economic theory gave birth to a new wave of corporate mission statements.

What was missing from my 22-year-old evaluation of the workforce was the importance of Leadership and Purpose. There were striking examples of leaders who made great sacrifices to save the jobs of their loyal employees during the financial crisis; leaders who innovated and adapted to much-needed changes to our economic structure; entrepreneurs who heard the cries of the disenfranchised workforce and created companies (and the concept of "B Corps") with outward-facing purpose ; companies that emerged from the crisis stronger than before. And all eyes were on those leaders and those companies. I’ll tell you what I noticed:

• They were companies who made a concerted effort to diversify their leadership with more women and minorities.
• They were companies who contributed to the greater good and emphasized their charitable and community involvement.
• They were companies motivated to create a legacy with net positive impact (not just in the “money-in-the-pocket” way).

As we sit here in 2020, facing similar (hopefully abridged) economic uncertainty, I offer this one observation to our business leaders: The workforce of tomorrow is watching you. When convention is thrown out the window, what will you do to recreate the marketplace? How will you treat your people? Are you building something that will outlive you? Are you listening to the voices of the disenfranchised, and if so, what are you doing with what you are hearing? What did you learn from the last crisis? The answers to these questions could chart the course for your company over the next decade and beyond.