Earlier this week I received an email from a past participant of a senior leadership development 
program I ran for his company a few years ago. The subject of the email read: “Confidential – Idea for
your Blog.” As I am always looking for new and interesting material, I opened it right away.
“Dear Rob,
I Love your blogs! Always interesting and very practical. I have an idea to share with you, but you can’t use my name or company or let anyone know this came from me…”
Even more intrigued, I read further. In the rest of the email, he shared his observations from a recent global leadership meeting he attended at his company. The former participant is probably around 60 years old and is a very successful leader. Over the past couple of years, his organization has gone through a significant change and through an acquisition infused an older more mature culture with a more vibrant, innovative, “hip” culture. Since the beginning of the year, there have been several restructurings and appointments of new leaders to run businesses and teams.
“I have seen things over the past few weeks that I never thought I would ever see in a business environment. I had a hard time with everything starting late; you know 9 am meetings that really start at 9:20 when everyone rolls out of bed and into the office but I got used to it. I have been speaking with other experienced leaders like me and they are seeing the same things. Please keep in mind, I am not making any value judgments, just sharing observations so other people can learn how to deal with the issues and the potential fallout.”
I had to edit some of the email down to the essential points which I think are interesting to think about and share.
Five things millennial leaders think are leadership best practices:
It’s okay to be impatient
This is a world of instant gratification. Millennials expect things to be done at the speed of light and when their real-world doesn’t move that quickly, they get agitated and impatient. They exhibit poor behavior and unfortunately, the millennial leaders think this is just fine and get even more impatient.
Find it impossible to make decisions alone
In an effort to mitigate risk and ultimately being held accountable, millennial leaders collaborate and make decisions in groups. Unfortunately, decisions can become watered down and quite often take too long to make. Millennial leaders think this is a good and strong best practice.
Have to act and sound smarter than they are (the vocal fry phenomenon)
Millennials are fighting hard to prove themselves and achieve more than their parents’ generation. Which may be impossible. “Have you heard this thing called ‘vocal fry’ where young men and women start out sentences normally and then end up sounding like frogs?” my participant asked.
Some experts believe that the reason behind the vocal fry phenomenon is that millennials are trying to sound more sophisticated, intelligent, and classier than they really are. It has morphed from being a best leadership practice to a full blown epidemic.
Want to share every thing
“I was listening to a few leaders talk about ‘P&L’ and thought for a moment that they were talking about the Profit and Loss Statement. I soon found out that they were talking about ‘Peace and Love’ and the idea of sharing our valuable intellectual property with others for free.” To be fair, the company’s new leaders were talking about taking obsolete technology –they recently launched a new version of a core product – and giving it to poor, emerging economies as an act of charity.
However, this is not an isolated story. The next generation of leaders believe in more sharing and less borders and giving away certain IP is considered a best practice.
Not comfortable being uncomfortable
I saved the most interesting observation for last.
“The most fascinating observation we made was discovering how uncomfortable they are being uncomfortable. To my generation, taking on risk, being uncomfortable, and achieving something great was a badge of honor. To the millennial leaders, it is the exact opposite.
Being a leader means taking educated risks and exploring new things and ideas; it’s about embracing being uncomfortable. If the next generation of leaders are uncomfortable being uncomfortable as a best practice, how are their companies going to grow and thrive?
I knew this was going to be a different type of blog and it has been enjoyable sharing.
Thoughts and comments – especially from millennial leaders – most welcome.
