This is the second entry in our newest four-part series, on the Future of Leadership. In this, we discuss the importance of cultivating leadership.
Entitled. Lazy. Ungrateful. Disloyal. Needy.
Do these adjectives sound familiar? Judging by recent media coverage, they could easily be describing the largest generational group in the workforce, Millennials, and the newest, Gen-Zers. But they were actually published in a 1968 issue of Life magazine—to describe Boomers.
It’s easy to forget, but the Silent Generation wasn’t exactly enthralled with Boomers (remember the late 60s?). And if you dig deep enough, you’ll find that many Silent Generation parents had the same complaints about them. No doubt there’s an undiscovered stone tablet somewhere with Hammurabi complaining about those lazy Babylonian teens.
Given this entirely predictable cycle, you’d think that every older generation would have realized by now how timeless their grumbling is. And yet.
Despite the stereotypes and suspicion, however, it’s far from inevitable that different generations of leaders can’t work well together. In that spirit, here are five ways your organization can be mindful of generational differences in emerging leaders, and still prepare them for success.
Cultivating Leadership Starts With Knowing What it Takes
1. Mind the (Generation) Gap
If you want to successfully address intergenerational issues and cultivate leadership in younger workers, you need to know what to look for. The first step is recognition, as the old saying goes.
In our humble opinion, the divide between current (also known as incumbent) leaders and emerging leaders is essentially a conflict between legacy and potential.
For many seasoned leaders, the terror of obsolescence is a private torment that manifests itself in painful and often predictable ways.
Leaders who have enjoyed successful track records, and are not particularly interested in retirement, can struggle to feel relevant and significant in the face of more nimble, technologically savvy, and sometimes just plain smarter younger bosses (or future bosses).
At the heart of the incumbent’s struggle is a sense that their contributions may be for naught— forgotten in the embrace of “new and improved,” hipper leaders. Older leaders, even if only subconsciously, feel threatened by the ambitions and potential of younger leaders.
Consequently, they’re all too prone to guard themselves, withholding important organizational wisdom that ought to be passed along to emerging leaders to help develop them.
Guarding these assets protects their personal longevity and feeling of indispensability. But it also makes the company’s longevity less guaranteed.
Without a transfer of critical knowledge, information, and practical experience, it becomes virtually impossible for incumbent leaders to create worthy, company-sustaining replacements. Instead of cultivating leadership, they’re thwarting it.
For their part, younger leaders often feel frustrated (if not threatened) by older leaders’ need to control the pace at which they gain influence. They believe, not without reason, that they’re being hindered from realizing their full potential. Feeling marginalized and constrained, some will defect to other organizations, where they hope any restraints will be a lot smaller.
Thus explains, at least in part, their current eagerness to job-hop (though the idea that Millennials do it much more than previous generations is probably overblown). Those who stick around must work within a system that can frustrate their ambitions.
The bottom line? Any leadership development program you attempt has to take these two dynamics into account.
2. Just Say No (to Labels)
One relatively simple way to soften intergenerational tension is to ditch the labels. Defining people by their generation (“Boomers,” “Gen Zers,” etc.) is just as unpleasant as when someone defines them by where they’re born (“Oh, he’s French”) or by some other reductive category.
A more productive approach is to treat people as individuals, regardless of their age, tenure, or generation.
Labels may seem like they increase our understanding of a person, but they’re superficial. They also entrench assumptions. Getting to know someone who is different from us is hard. It feels easier and safer to label a colleague’s behavior than it is to actually get to know him or her, and more deeply understand the behavior you’re trying to label.
These types of assumptions stifle the need to cross over, test preexisting beliefs, and build a relationship. If you do have to make an assumption, assume you don’t know what makes someone tick—and it’s your responsibility to find out.
Not to mention, the lines between “emerging” and “incumbent” are so often murky. Someone could easily be a bit of both. Sometimes we’re emerging and sometimes we’re incumbent; it depends on the situation. All the more reason to reject being pigeonholed as a “[blank].”
3. Prioritize Connection-Making
It’s well established that diverse companies generally perform better than less-diverse competitors. While many studies documenting this understandably focus on race, gender, and ethnicity, the same applies to generational diversity.
If you’re able to harness each generation’s strengths while minimizing tension points, having a mix of incumbent and emerging leaders can provide a real competitive advantage.
One way to do this is by creating a culture of cross-generational teamwork, blending the energy of emerging ideas with the wisdom of experience. But all this bridging doesn’t happen automatically. To build a powerhouse team that’s better together, you need to invest in relationship-building. Fact is, it takes resources and effort to successfully cultivate leaders.
This means being deliberate. Maybe you involve multiple generations in the design of leadership programs and efforts, ensuring teams or projects contain leaders from different generations. Or it might mean funding unstructured social time, like occasional happy hours, sports outings, etc.—anything low-stakes where people will feel like they can let their guard down for a little bit.
We spend most of our waking hours at work, yet very little time interacting with our workplace neighbors. Encourage leaders to cross the divide by asking for help from a leader who isn’t a part of the group they’ve been labeled as.
Or, if they’re new to an organization, regardless of their tenure in the industry, have them reach out to leaders who grew up in the company. Encourage pairs to go out to lunch and talk shop.
You can be creative here. If you’re an incumbent leader with a bad TikTok habit, it’s time to announce yourself. If you’re an emerging leader who spends your weekends reading Peter Drucker, speak up! Make it easier for people to relate to each other, and you’ll make it easier to cultivate willing leaders.
“Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.”
– Orrin Woodward
4. Smash Artificial Walls
The Center for Creative Leadership recently published an illuminating white paper on emerging leaders and leadership development. Cheekily titled “It’s You, Not Them,” the comprehensive report surveyed over 10,000 people between the ages of 18 and 30 (i.e., younger millennials and Gen-Zers) from 28 countries.
The paper ultimately proposes three strategies to help attract and retain young leaders. For our purposes here, the most relevant is probably “Reduce and reframe barriers.” (The other two are “Align values” and “Support equitable access.”)
“Our research suggests that personal, structural, and cultural barriers can discourage young professionals from stepping into a leadership role,” the section begins, laying out the stakes.
“Among the challenges we’ve identified are a lack of intergenerational trust, as well as a lack of confidence and initiative on the part of young people themselves.”
The authors offer four suggestions: “Foster resilience,” “Promote psychological safety,” “Offer scaffolded development,” and “Break down silos.” Here’s what each might look like, both within a team and within an organization:
Source: CCL
I highly encourage you to check out the full report. But one important takeaway, again, is that building rapport and connections takes deliberate effort. It rarely happens on its own.
5. Create Stretch Opportunities
On the surface this last suggestion focuses on emerging leaders, but—like any major strategy—if put into practice will eventually affect the entire organization, including incumbents. So they have a big stake in its success.
For a 2016 article for Forbes, I profiled the perennial Best Place to Work-winner Big Ass Solutions (formerly Big Ass Fans). Don’t let the silly name fool you: owner Carey Smith is deadly serious about creating an inclusive, happy work environment—especially for younger employees.
And it’s not just by offering excellent benefits. Smith and his team (of all ages) make it part of their mission to challenge younger workers, the thought being that it’s the best way to help them grow. One young leader named Scott told me that the company constantly hands out new responsibilities to hungry employees.
“We move people around to match their strengths and passions and we tell them if they are in the same job after two years, either they failed us or we failed them.”
Smith sees huge long-term value in this approach to cultivating leadership, even if things don’t always go as planned.
“When you put people into assignments that force them to stretch, they figure it out, they make mistakes, and they learn a ton. That’s how they get great. Nine times out of ten it works.”
Smith said he recognized the risk of putting younger leaders into assignments before they were completely ready, but he insisted it was the only practical way to grow the entire company’s capability.
“They’re going to have to drive eventually, and only practice will make them better. It’s a scary thought, but the scarier thought is a group of untrained and untried employees taking over the reins.”
Tip
Any clash between cultures, generations, or different groups of people will have some awkward or even difficult moments. If you experience them, try not to be discouraged; this is absolutely to be expected. Being able to sit with discomfort and move through it is an extremely useful skill—in work as in life.
The Power of Cultivating Leadership
Intergenerational conflict may be natural, but it’s not insurmountable—if you’re willing to make an effort. “Get off my lawn!”-style management won’t do the trick in the modern, ever-changing workplace. Nor will dismissing deep institutional knowledge save you when a cutting-edge bid at disruption goes bad. The key lies in balance.
As the kids say these days, cultivating leaders across generations doesn’t have to feel like a zero-sum game. Whatever generation you find yourself in, there’s a role for you to play—if you’re willing to accept it.
There is power in leading by example, and what better way to learn than with guidance from some of the most highly sought after leadership consultants working? We’ve spearheaded 1,800+ organizational and leadership transformation projects, and consulted over 50 CEOS. We’re ready to help you.
Set an excellent example for the generation of up-and-coming leaders in your organization. Contact us today.
In our next piece in this series we’ll discuss how you can redeem the idea of leadership in the mind of (skeptical) emerging leaders. For the fourth and final piece, we’ll look at better ways to motivate them.