Today, every organization in every industry is recruiting, hiring, developing, promoting and managing five generations within their workforce—traditionalists, baby boomers, Gen Xers, millennials, and Generation Z. This demography is hardwired into our business environment and will impact organizations for the next twenty years.
Millennials (21–34 years) have outstripped both baby boomers (50–64) and Gen Xers (35–49) in the U.S. workforce, and, by 2025, are forecast to account for 75 percent of workers globally. During the same period, more than a quarter of millennial’s will assume management and leadership roles within your multi-generational organization.
A Crisis as Opportunity
In a recent study, it was noted that millennial’s haven’t had the opportunity to develop needed leadership skills, and many managers are not equipped with the emotional quotient and people skills required to effectively manage a team.
There are consequences to organizations who do not invest in leadership development—poor communication, trust dysfunctions, and expensive turnovers. According to Gallup, this costs organizations as much as $30B annually.
Millennials are your emerging leaders for the next 10 years. Training and retaining this talent has major implications for an organization’s ability to compete, innovate, attract and retain talent, and to grow. Current leadership must come to grips with the question of how to develop millennial leaders.
Critical Competencies for Millennial Leaders
Millennials will be managing a widely diverse staff in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and experience. Leadership and development programs for these emerging leaders should focus on these high impact skills:
- Building relationships through empathy, rapport, and self-control
- Communicating effectively
- Resolving conflicts
- Leveraging diversity
- Persuading and influencing others
Not One Size Fits All
With the Towson University Leadership & Organizational Development team, leadership coaches and facilitators create an interactive environment for individuals to explore and develop their leadership skills. Our Emerging Leadership Program blends classroom instruction, group activities, one-on-one coaching, mentoring, and online access to meet the learning styles of millennials. As with all of our programs, our Emerging Leadership Program can be customized to fit the needs of any organization or individual.
Our Emerging Leadership Program will:
- Nurture a common culture of management and leadership for the next generation of organization leaders.
- Enable focused engagement between the organization’s future leaders and current leaders.
- Combine custom skills-building curriculum that builds individual leadership capacity and confidence.
- Increase the connection and commitment to achieving career-level results within the organization.
If you have questions, we have answers. Reach out to me at bdreynolds@towson.edu.
