Millennial Generation
What impact is the Millennial Generation having on the workforce and is it changing the perception of Leadership within organisations?
• Is the millennial generation really so special?
• What does leadership mean to them, and how should they be supported at work?
The 2015 Deloitte Millennial survey shows that people born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s believe the focus should be on people, while in their view, their managers are more focused on profit and personal reward.
The
Millennial Generation is in the workforce now. Many of them are becoming
managers. Estimates show nearly 40 percent of the workforce will consist of
Millennials by 2020.
A potential disconnect in values is important. If attitudes to authority are changing, organisations need to change their approach to how they provide leadership for this generation.
Key things you need to know about Millennials, they:
- Learn through experience
- See the world as complex and volatile
- Are loyal to principles, not people
- Have ‘fluid and permeable’ assumptions about privacy, boundaries and roles
- Don’t put up with bad bosses, and don’t listen to authority if they don’t agree
- Are not good at boring but necessary work.
(Professor Martha Maznevski is Professor of Organisational Behaviour and International Management at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland)
Technology has given them an expectation of immediacy and made them feedback-hungry
They are very risk averse, don’t like failing, and are more open to group work (as a way of mitigating risk?)
They internalise failure, and feel a wrong choice is their own fault
They are cocooned
They negotiate their grades
Impatience can make them entrepreneurial: they will set up their own businesses because they don’t like the slowness of organisations.
(Professor Elisabeth Kelan, Professor of Leadership at Cranfield School of Management)
ASTD Leadership Development for Millennials: Why it Matters (2013)
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