An Open Letter to CEOs during the Great Resignation.

Dear CEO,

Are you listening??

All around us, people are reevaluating their lives and work. This “reevaluation movement” was afoot long before COVID stopped us in our tracks, but it was more “underground.” We coaches knew it all along, but it’s possible that you didn’t even realize that your workforce had shifted and changed dramatically.

Oh sure, you and your peers talk about “those millennials” and how different and difficult they are to manage, but those millennials are turning 40. Don’t lose sight of their younger siblings, Gen Z, who are now entering your workforce, and are shifting company culture expectations even further.?

As an Executive Coach, I work with a number of CEOs and senior leaders, and here are the common reactions to today’s workforce expectations:

• Thinking that these younger workers better get it together and start doing things your way, the way you were taught by your mentors and teachers.
• Thinking that you know everything you need to know about how to behave, take action, and relate to others at work.?
• Relying on your experience of working your way to the top through hard work and determination, and expecting that it will serve all workers well to do the same.?
• Thinking that diversity and inclusion is a training program that folks should have, something that your “diverse” employees would be interested in, but not realizing that you may be the one who needs it the most. And that you’ll need to be actively involved in true diversity/inclusion/equity/belonging work in order to stop the outflow of people from your organization. Oh, and it’s FAR deeper than just training.
• Thinking that trusted people within your workplace are keeping you adequately informed about the shifts and changes and that you’re on top of things.?

NOTE: You may think I’m aiming this open letter at boomer leaders, and I am, but I hear the same things all the time from Gen X and Millennial leaders as well.?

The hard truth is, the higher you go, the more sheltered you are from the day to day of other people’s lives.?

Is it possible that you don’t know the cold, hard facts about how other people view your workplace and culture??

Is it possible that people are not having the same experience that you’ve had??

Is it possible that the way you’ve led, all this time, doesn’t cut it anymore??

Here are 5 places to start aligning your leadership thoughts and actions with today’s workforce.?

1. Release everything you think you know about leading people. The times, they are a-changin’ and they aren’t going back to the way things were. This requires a different approach to leadership. Examine how you typically lead. Do you listen? Get vulnerable? Understand that people want a life outside of work? Exercise your own work/life boundaries and expect it of others? Start there.
2. Working with your human resources or leadership/organizational development sources, figure out a way to get honest feedback from your employees about what is and isn’t working. And when you get that feedback, figure out a plan to implement it and be held accountable for it. Check in with a coach, consultant, or trusted peer.?
3. Although you may have gotten to your current role through hard work and determination, those rules don’t apply to everyone. As a white female, I’ve experienced discrimination in many different ways. I always felt that I had to work twice as hard in order to get half as far. There are now studies to prove what I knew and what I sensed. What I’ve recently learned is that my Indigenous, Black, Latina, and Asian sisters, and my LGBTQ+ and differently-abled siblings have had totally different experiences than I. And I need to honor those lived experiences and learn from them. How do you identify? If you identify as a white, cisgender male, you likely have benefited in invisible and visible ways from the systems we’ve had in the workplace for decades. If you can’t see that system, that’s a way to know that you’ve benefited from it. How can you discover what the experiences are of the employees who identify differently than you? See step 2 above.
4. Diversity and inclusion is not just about training. If you still see it as separate from leadership, examine that belief. Because today’s workforce is overwhelmingly identifying VERY differently than traditional beliefs allowed. Call me to talk more about this (602)888-0975.?
5. It’s very likely that your inner circle is made up of people who think and experience the world similarly to you. Things won’t change until you allow yourself to experience things differently. And to do that, it requires upheaval. And being WAY uncomfortable. And making mistakes, and admitting them.?

Are you up for the challenge??

(1)https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/

Laurie Battaglia and the team at Aligned at Work ? work with leaders to create workplaces of the future. They bring great leadership together with diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and meet rapidly changing needs to today’s and tomorrow’s workforce. Aligned at Work ? specializes in Diversity/Equity/Inclusion/Belonging Consulting and Training, Aligning Leadership Teams, Strategy Retreats, Aligned Leader? Training, Executive Coaching, Team Coaching, and Career Coaching.