Our youngest leaders matured in the glow of computer screens; our oldest in the shadow of the Depression and World War II. (Bennis & Thomas, 2002)
For Generations X and Y, the old command and control leadership is passé. The top down leadership style that grew from a military model is not effective in today’s world of rapid change. Today’s young leaders act first and evaluate later, because a leader cannot afford to carefully evaluate first in the high-speed environment of today.
This rapid response decision-making is a characteristic of today’s young people. They have been taught to act fast. Consider the video games young people have grown up with. They have played with simulations since they were very small, and have learned to act fast, watch what happens, and adapt. I remember a very early game my children played where a frog had to hop across the river without falling in the water or being eaten by the alligators. Do you remember Frogger?
I was never good at the game because I was cautious, watching, observing and waiting for the right moment to hop forward. My children were proficient at this game, because they moved fast and didn’t worry about making the best move. They would lose the frog, but remember the lesson and adapt their moves during the next round. Young people have grown up with simulations we never imagined. SimCity lets you build and operate a city and war games let you experience combat and team work. We have trained this generation to make quick decisions.
This shift in leadership style started with Generation X and has continued to become more pronounced in Generation Y. I think it is sometime hard for those of us of in an older generation to respect the quick, decisive leadership style we see in young people. I think we tend to question how much they really know, and we de-value their ability to make decisions based on limited experience. We grew up in a time when you worked your way up to leadership roles. Often we don’t think of younger volunteers or colleagues as collaborators, because we assume they are inexperienced. But young people today know more that we knew at their age. The World Wide Web and instantaneous access to news and information has made knowledge much more available at an earlier age.
Allow me to highlight five differences between generations and indicate how these differences contribute to new patterns of leadership: career, speed, loyalty, balance, and heroes.
The concept of career has changed. Young people today talk more about jobs and skills than they do about career paths. They don’t see the need or the benefit of picking a single career. Increasingly young people talk about having parallel careers. Many say they expect nine different careers in their lifetime. For them life is more like the video game SimLife, than the board game of Life. In video games roles are less defined and you learn through experimentation. And if it doesn’t work, you can reboot and start again.
Life in the new millennium is all about speed. Young people not only live with speed and chaos, they thrive in it. In a climate of rapid change the young generations knows you have to act fast to win or stay in the game. If you proceed slowly and cautiously, you lose. The patient are glanced over, passed over and run over. The great depression taught people to make sacrifices and be patient, but the Information age has taught a generation that you never have to wait for anything. They are looking for opportunities to gain twenty years of experience in two year. Computer simulations allow them to formulate ideas, test them, retest, refine and move forward. They believe in just doing it.
Loyalty has new meaning among young people who saw their parents downsized, reengineered and layoff off. They know the days of corporate loyalty to employees are long gone. Young people look after themselves first. They exhibit little loyalty to anyone other than friends and family. Loyalty is highly valued, and given only to a few friends and colleagues after they have earned it. When they feel respected and valued they will be loyal to the cause or organization and become great assets and advocates.
Balance is a fundamental value in the younger generations. As children of workaholic baby boomers, they view time, commitments and career advances through the lens of balance. In the workplace young people have been termed slackers because they don’t work late, or don’t come in on the weekend or they refuse to attend those extra meeting. They expect time off for family functions and don’t understand why they have to stick around if they’ve finished all that was expected of them. But it is not an aversion to work that prompts their actions. It is a commitment to family and friends – a commitment to having a balanced life in which work is only one segment of a full life.
For many of us in older generations, heroes contributed to our ideals and values.
I grew up with the words of John Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your county.” Past generations had many heroes that shaped and influenced them. They were the icons, the people we looked to for inspiration and leadership.
When I talk with Xers and Y’s about public heroes and figures they admire and look up to, they struggle to find a name and often tell me they do not have “public” heroes. They may consider parents, friends and coworkers as people they admire, but most often they say they have no real models of leadership, no people they look up to outside of their immediate circle. At first I found this disturbing (being of the Boomer generation with lots of heroes) but have come to realize the whole concept of heroes has changed. Every time someone gets nominated to be a hero someone else comes along and reveals a dirty secret about them. Information makes heroes temporary or passing figures. Consider all the books that have been written about the Kennedy’s, Martin Luther King or Princess Diana.
The young generation does not look for a Lone Ranger form of leadership. They don’t believe that a larger-than-life individual can ride in, gives directions and leads the way to great accomplishments. They also do not view age, seniority and rank as measures of accomplishment or expertise. Unlike an earlier time when people admired their elders and followed them to victory, this generation does not see age as a dominant characteristic for leadership.
In an era of complexity and change, young people look for leaders who work with followers as intimate allies. They want colleagues who will develop relationships that build intimacy and show trust and respect for them, their abilities and their ideas.
References
Bennis, W. & Thomas, R. (2002). Geeks & Geezers: How Era, Values and Defining Moments Shape Leaders. Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press.
Chester, E. (2002). Employing Generation Why? Colorado: Tucker House Books.