Millennials in Leadership Positions

Does that title scare you or does it challenge you to look at how you are grooming younger mangers who are the future leaders of your organization?

Millennials make up a huge part of today’s workforce and therefore, they are moving into leadership roles already.  Many organizations are finding that developing new leaders in this generation has to be done in a different manner from how we’ve always done it.

We know that no new manager has all the skills necessary to be a good manager. Many managerial skills are learned on the job and through trial and error. Millennials tend to be supremely confident in their abilities to take on leadership roles. We need to provide opportunities for them to gain the knowledge and experience needed to supplement their strengths.

The Millennial generation’s leaders are facing a complex world that is dominated by technology and an ever-changing business environment.  According to an article in the January 2015 issue Workforce Magazine by Michael Watkins and PJ Neal titled Millennial in Training, the authors state that “(Millennials) experience as the first truly diverse and digital generation has prepared them well to lead the next generation.”

They give four key areas of focus for Millennial Leaders:

·       “Developing a Leadership mindset—moving from individual contributor to frontline manager can be a difficult change.  Millennial leaders need to make sure they understand how to build trust and credibility, leverage emotional intelligence and begin to think of themselves as a leader, not just a contributor.”

·       “Leading yourself—millennial leaders need to make sure they develop personal agility to survive in today’s environment. Focus on development areas, such as agility, time and stress management, and delegation skills.”

·       Leading others—two key areas for millennial leaders are accelerating talent development and developing high-performing teams. Focus o how to give feedback, be a coach, manage a team and effectively deal with team conflict.”

·       “Leading the business—millennial leaders need to successfully and effectively drive execution. They need to know how to create alignment with their team and effectively make decisions in a manner that results in their team members and stakeholders feel like they’ve been listened to.”

Our advice to you is to be thinking of how you are going to develop your next leaders so that we can tap into their strengths and help them and our organizations be as successful as possible!