Gen Xers and Millennials, It’s Time To Lead. Are You Ready?

Bill George boasts long and successful executive stints at Honeywell, Litton Industries, and Medtronic—plus, he coined the term “authentic leadership.” Now, he says he and his fellow Baby Boomers need to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders who can learn to lead collaboratively.

“It’s time for Boomers to step aside, and for the new generation to step up,” says George, now an executive fellow at Harvard Business School. “They are the leaders we need.”

Many Baby Boomers in the US are rejecting the idea of a quiet Florida retirement and expect to stay in the workforce longer than ever. But, frustrated Gen Xers and Millennials need not give up—their time will come, and they need to prepare now.

“WE DESPERATELY NEED THIS GENERATION TO LEARN HOW TO MANAGE DIVERSE PEOPLE, AND MANAGE THROUGH OUR CRISES.”

In the new book True North: Emerging Leader Edition, George offers advice drawn from decades of teaching students from the Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z eras. George and coauthor Zach Clayton, CEO of the digital marketing firm Three Ships, urge young leaders to usher in a new way of doing business—one based on collaborative problem-solving, rather than barked orders from the top.

‘The requirements have changed’

In a world where business is reckoning with issues like climate change, racial inequities, and gender bias, “we’re going through a massive transformation in leadership,” George says.

“Boomers were trained in a very different time,” he explains. “Business schools taught management, not leadership. Today, the requirements have changed so drastically. We desperately need this generation to learn how to manage diverse people, and manage through our crises.”

The key, George says, is for the business world’s upcoming leaders to discover and develop what he calls their True North: who they really are, deep down, and what their fundamental purpose is. Only then, he says, will they be prepared to work with a team, rather than issue top-down directives.

Finding yourself and your leadership values

George offers practical steps for emerging leaders, while sharing stories from his own work experiences and the careers of CEOs and nonprofit leaders who navigated challenges. His advice for emerging leaders:

  1. Discover yourself. Test your “crucibles” to find your moral compass and calling. For instance, Kabir Barday almost died from the stress of building his online-security software firm OneTrust into an industry leader, so he changed how he lives. Now, he meditates daily and practices self-forgiveness. He says living a more grounded, balanced, and integrated life has made him a better leader.

  2. Develop yourself. Cultivate your self-awareness and the values that will lead to an integrated life. In 2008, as the financial crash worsened, Sally Krawcheck was fired at Citibank for urging the firm to repay customers for defective investments. She stuck to her values and now leads her own online investment firm for women.

  3. Lead people. Develop the practice of “we” leadership and the role of serving others through collaboration. At the video services provider Vimeo, Anjali Sud persuaded both managers and employees to follow her insight that the firm could perform better as a software company for business customers, rather than continuing as a consumer site. As George says, she became an “enabler” for the whole firm.

  4. Navigate today’s challenges. Be prepared to successfully lead your company through crises and help solve difficult global problems. In 2014, new General Motors CEO Mary Barra faced her first big crisis: A systematic denial of problems produced a wave of ignition-switch failures. Barra—a 41-year GM employee—confirmed the criticisms at a Congressional committee hearing and then ordered what became 30 million recalls. She went on to cultivate a “bottom-up” leadership ethos.

The hardest lesson: inner satisfaction

George contrasts those leaders with business celebrities he says never found their True North.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, has deflected blame for his company’s many scandals, even pushing back against a whistleblower’s accusation that profits mattered more than safety. Travis Kalanick has touted Uber’s push-the-limit culture, which some employees viewed as toxic and sexist. And WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann, whose self-aggrandizing behavior belied the company’s major troubles, proved to be an immature executive, he says.

“Authenticity is the gold standard,” George says. “If you’re like Zuckerberg and haven’t discovered your True North, you won’t get it.”

He says the hardest lesson for aspiring leaders isn’t management experience. Instead, it’s learning that they need to find “where they get their inner satisfaction,” rather than focusing on the outward appearance of success in terms of seeking power, money, and status.

“Young leaders are often tempted by external symbols,” he says. “I was in danger of getting caught in that trap at Honeywell, but woke up to recognize I needed to move to Medtronic.”

Tests, failure, and humility

Failure is a crucial part of the journey, and it often comes when it’s least expected. Facing challenges with humility is what will help leaders learn, George says.

“A LEADER SHOULD BE OUT WITH THE FRONTLINE PEOPLE ... IF YOU’RE NOT DOING THAT, YOU’RE SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME IN MEETINGS.”

“As a leader, you will inevitably face a crisis that will be a defining moment,” he says. “There is no playbook, and the root cause and implications [are] not clear. So, face the crisis, consider worst-case possibilities, and develop a flexible plan to navigate it.”

George offers seven practical steps for responding to a crisis:

  1. Face reality.

  2. Dig deep for the root cause.

  3. Engage with your frontline teams.

  4. Never waste a good crisis.

  5. Get ready for the long haul.

  6. Go on the offense to win now.

  7. Always follow your True North.

Go to the front lines

In surveying the shifting terrain of 21st century business, he says, “Leaders should consider inverting the organizational chart,” putting frontline workers on top and all the managers in supporting roles.

George says younger leaders are now increasingly turning to what he calls “the I-we journey,” by which they learn how to cultivate a sense of collaboration at all levels of a company. “It’s not just about one person at the top,” he says.

“One thing we learned from COVID-19 is the true value of frontline workers, who were risking their lives while the rest of us were on Zoom calls,” George says. “A leader should be out with the frontline people, so what they experience isn’t third-hand. I’ve told leaders, if you’re not doing that, you’re spending too much time in meetings.”

Lane Lambert

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