Are You Ready for the Boomer-to-Millennial Hand-off?

by Tom Donaldson | Feb 18, 2020 | Change Management, Coaching, Management

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Are You Ready for the Boomer-to-Millennial Hand-off?

In case you haven’t noticed, we Boomers (Generation “Baby Boom”) are beginning to age out of leadership. Our oldest members, born in 1946, are coming up on 74 this year and are probably retired from careers, even if still active in avocational roles through nonprofit and faith-based organizations. Our youngest members, born in 1964, will be 56 this this year, and still have a significant impact in the business and professional world as managers and senior leaders.

On the Millennial side, we have another significant age range to consider. Mentalfloss has refined the birth years for Millennials as 1981-1996, ranging in age from 24 to 39. (Interesting note: The millennial I am best acquainted with—he shares my last name—will be 35 this year and doesn’t see much in common with the “young millennials…”) If nothing else, this highlights the danger of being too prescriptive in our stereotypes.

Now that we have refreshed the two age groups, what is the significance? Across most of corporate America, in companies big and small, the leadership baton is passing directly from Boomers to Millennials. You may have already experienced some tension in this process. Let me suggest XX key actions and practices that can pave the way and smooth the road ahead…

First, get a picture of how these two groups compare in key areas:

CHARACTERISTIC	BOOMERS	MILLENNIALS
Work Ethic	Desires quality; questions authority; driven	Tenacity; entrepreneurial; ambitious
Leadership style	Quality; consensus	Participative; social; achievement
Motivated by	Being valued and needed	Working with bright people
Perspective	Team-oriented	Community-minded
Communication style	In-person	Online, text, apps

What I notice about this comparison:

There are several similarities in characteristics, even though the terminology is not identical.
Sometimes, just getting clear on vocabulary makes working together much easier
This points to a better synchronicity between the two groups than we might predict!

Second, what are the positive actions the more experienced among us might take to make this transition of leadership more positive and effective?

Create low-risk, high potential experiences of collaboration around projects and initiatives.
Take intentional steps to develop leadership among Millennials. Determine the appropriate skill to use in moving them forward:
- Lack of knowledge? Provide excellent content and training.
- Barriers or hurdles in your organization or processes? Use your influence (clout) to move those out of the way.
- Self-limiting or self-defeating attitude? Coach that person to think differently and act differently in order to remove internal barriers to success.

Finally, take advantage of personal assessments to determine strength areas of individuals as well as areas that are challenging. This is useful for all team members, no matter the generation of each. Some useful inventories and assessments include: