Leading your future leaders

Deloitte, in its global Millennial survey 2019 (which included Gen Zs) found that Millennials are sceptical of business’ motives. Only 49% of Millennials indicated that business leaders generally behave ethically. In addition, respondents did not think highly of leaders’ impact on society, their commitment to improving the world, or their trustworthiness.

Those in leadership positions are the template for the future leadership potential. The risk we run is that current leaders are becoming an example of opposite modelling for those in the pipeline. Young leaders in the making want to be able to look up to current leaders, and see them as setting an example of how to deal with tough situations.

 

Given the indications that Millennials are sceptical about business’ motives, there is clearly a need for leaders to sit up and listen. What is it that Millennials need from current leaders? What can be done to fix the situation? 

More to explore

Outsourced morality

It is incumbent on each of us to constantly evaluate whether our moral compass is still pointing to our true north. We need to continually ask ourselves whether our actions are informed by our own beliefs that we carefully considered, before we concluded that they are fit to be used in our moral compass. How certain are we that we are not just believing what we are because those around us believe it? Or, that we are believing what we are because those who we have crowned with a halo believe it? Applying one’s own mind is paramount if we were to avoid the temptation of outsourcing our morality to others.

Fear can be your friend or your enemy

Whether we like it or not, we were not designed to be fearless. Fear is an emotional response connected to a basic need we all have – to feel safe. In the evolution of the human brain, this had been encoded for a very good reason. Our fear response is designed to trigger an action from us. If it’s a lion, we run. If we were to convince ourselves that we should not show fear and stand our ground, the stand we take is probably going to be immaterial to a starving lion. His fear that you may also be a threat, would most certainly be overridden by his fear of starving to death. Human beings are in any event rather defenceless without our modern weapons.

Know your rhythm

It is important that we work with our rhythm instead of against it. That is a sure way to increase our productivity. In the last number of months, I have started to notice that the number one issue I am dealing with among my coachees is burnout. Often that is because of a lack of understanding of what their rhythm is. We look after ourselves as leaders because we need to give those we lead the best version of ourselves. Selfcare is part of our leadership responsibility.

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