So what are the skills that will be needed in the future to be a great manager? I think the better question would be to address what are the followers like in the future. It is not so much that leadership and management have really changed. The principles and philosophies are solid. Maslow's hierarchy of need are still relevant. Taylor's scientific management practices, Douglas McGregors management and motivation theories, and a host of other are just as applicable today as they were 20 or even 50 years ago. However, the people who are following those leaders have changed. I observing the four generations now desperately seek coexistence, it is amazing that workplace violence is as low as it is. Traditionalists make up 5% of our labor force. Boomers make up 45% of our workforce. Gen-Xers comprise 40% and 3rd Millenials make up 10%. This is where we are currently at. This means that most of our top leaders are Boomers and our followers are a mix of some boomers, xers, and 3-M's. As Boomers exercise their exit strategies, Xers and 3-M's are poised to take the lead. The 3-M's are where it gets really interesting though. This generation experienced a marketing shift at an early age. Marketing gurus with their infinite wisdom, drive, and determination discovered that guilt ridden parents with too little time would do anything to shut up, I mean pacify, their little darlings. What that means is that kids began to drive the buying decisions instead of parents. This was a monumental shift in mentality resulting in a generation that by and large expects to be marketed and catered to. Sooooo, when they get a job, they want you to woo them and impress them with what your company has to offer. Having grown up in daycares, they are social creatures by nature. They seek out environments where those ingrained values and behaviors can be met, and/or exceeded. Gone are the days of potential employees saying, "Just give me a chance to prove myself and I will not let you down." All of this is to say that we cannot manage this generation the way we have managed others if we want to get the same level or higher productivity from them. We have to adapt. They will not. They never have had to, so why start now? ;)
Jody Holland
www.murfsystems.com
