The Hallmarks of Great Leaders -- and the Needs of Younger Workers --- are Timeless

Fast Company has another excerpt from the new chapter in Good Boss, Bad Boss out today -- one that goes against things that many so-called management gurus often say. My main point i those who argue management needs to be re-invented are misguided -- they massively overstate the case and have incentives for doing so, but it doesn't stand up to the evidence.  Here is opening of the piece and you can read the rest here:

A lot of people write business books: about eleven thousand are published each year. There are armies of consultants, gurus, and wannabe thought leaders, and thousands of management magazines, radio and TV shows, websites, and blogs. 

These purveyors of management knowledge have incentives for claiming their ideas are “new and improved” rather than the same old thing. One twist, which I’ve seen a lot lately, is the claim that management or leadership needs to be reinvented. Many reasons given for this need seem sensible: Gen X and Gen Y require different management techniques; outsourcing, globalization, and information technology means working with people we rarely if ever meet in person; the pressure to think and move ever faster is unprecedented; so many employees are disengaged that they need to be managed so they feel appreciated.

Yet, no matter how hard I look at studies by academics and consulting firms, or at contrasts between successful and unsuccessful leaders, I can’t find persuasive evidence of substantial change in the kinds of bosses people want to become or work for, or that enable human groups and organizations to thrive. Changes such as the computer revolution, globalization, and distributed teams mean that if you are a boss, staying in tune with followers is more challenging than ever. And, certainly, bosses need to be more culturally aware because many workplaces are composed of more diverse people.

But every new generation of bosses faces hurdles that seem to make the job tougher than it ever was. The introduction of the telephone and air travel created many of the same challenges as the computer revolution--as did the introduction of the telegraph and trains. Just as every new generation of teenagers believes they have discovered sex and their parents can’t possibly understand what it feels like to be them, believing that that no prior generation of bosses ever faced anything like this and these crazy times require entirely new ways of thinking and acting are likely soothing to modern managers. These beliefs also help so called experts like me sell our wares. Yet there is little evidence to support the claim that organizations—let alone the humans in them—have changed so drastically that we need to invent a whole new kind of boss.

I'd love your reactions!

P.S. Note that Gen Y and Gen X really aren't much different than any other new generation of employees in terms of what they want -- even though there is a small industry around dealing with these so-called new kinds of workers.  Certainly, younger workers want different things than older workers -- but this has always been the case and what they want has always been pretty similar -- be they baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, or whatever.  See this piece by Wharton's Peter Cappelli, perhaps the most prestigious talent researcher in academia, where he discusses the evidence, which show a few differences, but nothing dramatic.  

 

Comments

[Gerry Ledford]

I did some research on this topic when I was at Sibson Consulting, using a database we collected from a random sample of the U.S. workforce. The generational differences that we found were entirely accounted for by age, not the era in which people were raised. Older employees care a lot about health care and retirement benefits. Younger workers don't, because they still think they are immortal. Those most concerned with careers are middle-aged. Younger workers want to be taken seriously because they fear they aren't by their elders. Etc.

I once was interviewed by a reporter from Fortune who was doing the umpteenth new story on how the current generation is really new and different from all that have come before it. I told her that I had been reading the same story my entire adult life, although the words had changed a bit. I said that these stories always seemed to be written by eager 26-year-old reporters who were just rediscovering what we called "the generation gap" in the '60s. There was dead silence on the other end of the line. Uh-oh. I said, are you a 26-year old reporter? Bingo. The story went to print about how the next generation at work was really, really different, with the reporter using herself as an example. Needless to say, I was not quoted in the piece.

If you are an old fart and you want to know what 20-somethings are thinking, just remember what you were thinking at that age. Doesn't matter whether they were raised in war or peace, recession or expansion, with one parent working or two. Their concerns are same that yours used to be. And they aren't ever going to get you until they grow up, because 20-somethings haven't had the life experience to know what goes through the mind of a 60-something. That's the way of the world.

[Bob Sutton]

Ron,

I appreciate the comment but have a different perspective. The assumption you are making that somehow things were more stable and slow moving than in the past is exactly the one that I am questioning later in the piece (see the complete fast company excerpt). As pointed out in Beyond the Hype, the so called stable periods in last 100 years or so include the enormous impact of planes, telephones, radios, TVs and cars, build up for World War I, Prohibition, the great depression, the build up and shocking changes in World War II, the men all coming home, the cold war, the end of the cold war, the sexual revolution, the Vietnam war and societal fractures associated with that... the assumption that anything was stable -- industries, social norms, international relations, economic progress -- doesn't not square with the evidence.

[Ronald C. Burkhardt]

One more thought - what we typically think of with boss is more managing than leadership. I always say it like this - "Management is about the allocation of scarce resources. Leadership is about hearts and minds". Management is no longer enough (was it ever)?

[Rod Johnson]

Absolutely, everything changes - yet it also stays the same. I tell everyone of my clients early on two simple facts that never change.
1. You're in the psychology business!
2. All decisions are personal.

Yes, things have shifted and possibly changed over time. But from this I will make a simple prediction.

"We will always be in search of 'the secret sauce.'"

[Heatherlchr]

You make an interesting point here. I do think that much of the Gen X and Gen Y differences are overstated. At a high level good leadership skills will work for any generation. I think that perceived differences between generations in the work place have more to do with the pace of changing corporate culture and technology, and how these changes impact employees of different ages, than any fundamental differences in the employees based on their generational status.

[Ronald C. Burkhardt]

The greatest shift IMHO is the shift from long-term rewards to short term gains. That and the rise of the knowledge worker, age, and economy.

The GenX/GenY arguments seem to take place in a vacuum and not take into account that workers have less loyalty because employers make little long-term investment in their workers. We have jobs now, not careers. You get the loyalty you give. Also, the "constantly needing praise" whine about younger workers is ignorant; your workers want feedback, not praise. Engagement.

Most of the research on organizations is from the Industrial Revolution era forward. This era focused on incremental improvements and the occasional innovation, which I guess trended towards statism. We are now in a disrupt or be-disrupted stage, which may be incompatible with the industrial age management theory.