How Focus on Generations Can Spell Trouble for a Leader

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Leaders Focus on People, Not Generations

There is no denying that there are generations in our history. Also no denying that we have undergone huge social upheavals, especially in the last 100 years, that define those generations.

And certainly there is some benefit to being able to identify cultural impacts on a certain age group. It helps to understand perspective and reference base.

Culture Impacts Generations and Understanding

For example, every year Beloit College puts out what they call The Mindset List. For each year of incoming freshmen, they detail things the students have and have not experienced in their lifetime. It helps staff and faculty better understand where they are coming from. Some examples from this year’s list, the class of 2021, are:

Students coming in this year were likely born in 1999.
They are the last of the Millennial Generation
They are the first generation for whom a “phone” has been primarily a video game, direction finder, electronic telegraph, and research library
Zappos has always meant shoes on the Internet
Bill Clinton has always been Hillary Clinton’s aging husband
Justin Timberlake has always been a solo act

Things like that can be useful information. Things they have known to exist and what has ceased to exist. Knowing a little bit about perspective can be helpful and identifying generational data serves that purpose.

Dangerous Assumptions Based on Generations

Where we run into trouble is when we attach stereotypes to a generation. Trying to predict behaviors based on a generation leads to assumptions. And as a leader, making and acting upon assumptions can lead to dangerous consequences.

I am a Baby Boomer, which in some eyes makes me old. In my defense, I am on the tail end of it.

By generational stereotyping I should be……..well, that’s the problem. In my research it was difficult to find any kind of consensus on what characteristics define a Boomer. By some accounts I am a workaholic, not very tech savvy, out to get mine, and very rules driven. By other accounts, I am simply looking forward to retirement, stay in one job for an extended period of time, and am independent and even revolutionary.

in truth, I am anything but a workaholic (actually I could probably use at least a little of that attitude). I consider myself very tech savvy (background as a technical trainer), but also very relationship-driven. Most would tell you I am not exactly known as a rules follower. Personally, I said no to retirement long ago. I have changed jobs often. I enjoy mentoring, adding value, and sharing fame and fortune. I’ll stop before it sounds too much like a dating profile.

But if you rely on the stereotypes, your treatment and expectations for me would certainly create conflict. I would most likely not behave or produce the way you envisioned. Which doesn’t mean I wouldn’t produce, just not necessarily the way you expected.

Millennials have the same issue.

Who Are Millennials?

True to form, there is some variation in the time period for the Millennial Generation. Some say from 1982 to 2000; others say from 1980 to 1996. Bruce Tulgan, who authored the book Not Everyone Gets a Trophy, actually defines it in two waves – from 1978 to 1989 and then from 1990 to 2000.

As a result, most Millennials in the workplace would roughly be between 18 and 37 years of age with the last remnants about to enter the workforce.

To discover the stereotypes of MIllennials, I performed a Google search starting with the words “Millennials are” and here are some of the words that appeared

Lazy
Entitled
Selfish
Disloyal
Tech Savvy
Need work to babysit them

Most M’s I know are far from lazy; if anything they are too busy. Entitlement is not the exclusive territory of M’s and is more cultural than generational in my opinion. Again, very general statements that stereotype an entire generation of people. And companies pay consultants thousands of dollars to learn how to engage with them.

Why the Stereotypes Don’t Work

Here is why relying on these assumptions about generations creates problems for a leader.

Very (Sometimes Extremely) Overgeneralized

As seen in the above list of Millennial stereotypes in order to create a “profile” means we often point to the extreme behaviors over the typical. Extreme behaviors stand out and are the ones most noticed. So when we find it necessary to try to predict behavior, we opt for the far side.

Highly Inaccurate

Generational Theory came about in 1923 by Karl Mannheim. Emphasis on theory. Mannheim himself even admits that there are wild variations in his theories about generations. Part of that is caused by location, heritage, and other factors. What we know about a Baby Boomer from Florida may be different than what is true about a Boomer in Montana.

Despite the empirical data surrounding Mannheim’s study, it is still just a theory and as yet to be proven as scientifically provable. However, like evolution, we have taken an unproven theory and made it science.

Arbitrary Classifications

The only one really well-defined is Baby Boomers, which is from 1946 to 1964. They were well-defined because statistically there was a huge increase in births during that time period; likely brought about by people returning from the war. World War One, Two, Korean War – pick one.

Other generations, even the ones preceding Boomers, have been somewhat randomly created to suit a purpose. For example, the generation leading up to 1946 is called The Greatest Generation. How did that term come about? Newsman Tom Brokaw coined it because it made a good book title. Actually, I’m sure he really felt that way. But the fact that it did sell a lot of books certainly doesn’t hurt. Realistically, it should be called the World War Generation because that’s the period that defines them the most.

Yet as noted before, there tends to be dissension over generation names and time periods for most of these generations. And most of the definitions appear to be entirely self-serving. If your book or product serves a specific segment, it’s good to have that segment be more inclusive.

What does understanding generations do to help you? How do you overcome the stereotypes?

Share your thoughts here or drop me a line at psimkins(at)BoldlyLead.com.

How Love Makes a Difference in the Workplace

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Leading with Love

Tis the Season

Christmas is love. Dog Jack Russell Terrier in a house decorated with a Christmas tree and gifts wishes happy Holiday and Christmas Eve

Love at Christmas. Even people who aren’t particularly faithful will celebrate Christmas. We give gifts, we buy gifts for others, we receive gifts from others, we spend a lot of time with family. And we celebrate Christmas because of the importance of the event and what it means to us; even people who don’t follow it very strongly really understand what Christmas is all about.

At the core, what Christmas is really all about is LOVE! It’s about how we love others!

And this is the opportunity that it presents to us: the opportunity to love others. To put the focus on other people for at least a little bit of time so we can care for them and add value to them.

The Every Day Season

That same attitude we employ during this season is what drives our relationships the rest of the year. To Boldly Lead people follows an essential process.

We CARE for people
So can then CONNECT with them
In order to INFLUENCE them
Setting us up to LEAD them

So it starts with caring. Yet here’s the catch.

You cannot care for anyone you don’t love.

Love in Business – that’s Weird!

Now it may seem odd using that word in the context of leadership and business. Yet it depends greatly on how you define it. If you only think of love in romantic terms then this seems really….weird. And perhaps a little disturbing. And in light of recent events and public revelations of inappropriate behavior it may even seem career killing.

But there is more than one way to love others. In fact, in an article in Psychology Today, author Dr. Neel Burton outlines seven types of love.

Eros – Romantic
Philia – Friendship
Storge – Familial
Agape – universal or charitable
Ludus – playful or uncommitted (think flirting)
Pragma – practical love, born of reason or duty
Philautia – Self-love, i.e., your self-esteem and confidence

Try a Business Related Love

In his book Love is the Killer App, Tim Sanders defines a workplace related love. He calls it BizLove. It would most closely related to Pragma but also Philautia plays a part.

BizLove means that you engage in the sensible sharing of intangibles to promote other people’s growth. In other words, the growth and development of your people is your primary concern.

In order to do that, you must have a good enough self-esteem and confidence that you don’t feel threatened by the growth of others. And it means that you regard caring for others important enough to make it a priority and a daily event.

Look at it this way, Everyone on your team has improved their ability to contribute and applied that to team goals or organizational goals. How does that improve your team? Your organization? How does it increase YOUR value?

[tweetthis]Love creates the circumstances by which we excel, particularly by helping others excel.[/tweetthis]

Love Applied

So here’s a few things that I want you to do during this holiday season to really celebrate what Christmas is all about and share that love. This will set the stage for practicing your BizLove as well.

Do something for someone else who can never pay you back. Focus on that, look to do that daily; something for someone who can never pay you back. That’s what love really means; when you don’t expect a reward or a payback, what can you do for others.
Take time out from the gift giving to appreciate the gift of everyone you encounter. What’s special about the people you spend your time and relationships with? Tell them. Tell them what they mean to you and that will make a world of difference to them!
Look around you and appreciate the LOVE that the creator has shown you by surrounding you with blessings! Even when you don’t necessarily see them.

I hope you have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Want to help spread the message of love in your organization? Book me to speak at your next gathering. Contact me at psimkins(at)BoldlyLead.com for more details.

What Employees Expect from Their Leader and Changing Perspective

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Expectations on the Leader

A leader has to face more than just the task at hand. Often they also have to face perception. I was reminded of a book I read called The Work of Leaders. It was written by a team of four authors at Wiley Press. I heard one of the authors, Julie Straw, present a briefing on their research. One thing item got my attention at the time and I thought of it again. I shared these thoughts once before but time also deepens our perspective.

Employee Expectations

Straw mentioned a survey on employees asking about the shortcomings on their leaders. After distilling it down they came up with three primary issues that people have with their leaders. They are, in order,

Employees want leaders to be more active about finding new opportunities for the team
They also want them to focus more on improving process and making things easier for people
Finally, they want them to spend more time motivating and encouraging their followers

Interestingly, what struck me about this was the comments themselves. Certainly number three is a quality that leaders should embrace. In fact, a leader should spend the vast majority of their time encouraging people, equipping people, and motivating them to become better than they are. But the other two items, #1 and #2, are not really leadership issues; they are management issues.

Manager or Leader

One of the things this tells us is that many people put management and leadership in the same bundle. When people say that the leader should be more active about finding new opportunities for the team and focus more on improving process, they are really saying that these are behaviors they would like to see in their managers that obviously they aren’t seeing.

Remember the simple formula:

MANAGERS are about PROCESS, LEADERS are about PEOPLE

Therefore seeking new opportunities and improving process, making life easier for employees; those are the job of the manager. Equipping, empowering, encouraging, motivating, and growing are the roles of the leader.

That said, to be a truly effective manager you must also be an effective leader. In fact, perhaps what the results of the survey really tell us is what people would like to see. They would like to see managers be more proactive in their management roles but also better leaders than they are now.

A Leader is Grown Not Born

Above all leaders have a responsibility to grow their followers. It’s an enormous responsibility. However for a leader to grow others, they must first grow themselves. You cannot give what you don’t have. I think leaders are recognizing this more and more. Another survey cited in the book The Work of Leaders is about what people think they need the most in order to be better equipped for the jobs.

What was number one?

Leadership Training

Leaders Sail the Waters Daily

When sitting in a boat you are surrounded by the tools you need to sail. However, you may not have any knowledge about sailing. Therefore to use those tools effectively you must spend time developing and applying sailing skills. You develop the skill to gauge the wind, navigate the water, trim the sails, and plot the course.

You then bring all these elements together to move in the desired direction on the water. Sometimes it pays to be mentored by a more experienced sailor. There is learning from your mistakes and the mistakes of others. And you must do all of this day in and day out to become the sailor you desire to be.

Leaders Develop Intentionally

If you are not developing your leadership skills on a regular basis you simply will NOT grow to become an excellent leader. At best it will be inconsistent or very slow. Books and newspapers are full of stories of leaders who are only willing to grow so far. They aren’t willing to make it a deliberate part of their life. As a result, they only realize so little of their potential.

Leadership growth occurs best when it is

DAILY – you must do something every day to develop your skills
INTENTIONAL – you must have a plan for the skills you need to develop and how you will develop them
SCHEDULED – you must set aside time on your calendar for it; otherwise any excuse will help you avoid it
GUIDED – Someone needs to help you see and navigate the process; like a coach or mentor
PROGRESSIVE – build on a skill one by one; don’t attempt to master anything in a day

Spend time on developing yourself and your people than do on management or process problems. When you do, you will be surprised to find how many management problems seem to take care of themselves.

How much intentional is your growth as a leader? What is your biggest challenge making it more intentional? Comment below or send me a note at psimkins(at)BoldlyLead.com.

Are you not sure how to start on the road to intentional leadership? Schedule your free Discovery Strategy Session today.

Why Solid Core Values are Indispensable to Getting You the Best People

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Core Values Determine Who You Attract and Keep

Having identifiable core values are the essence of any person or any team. They are the solid foundation for determining your actions and your choices. Without knowing what our core values are, decisions become harder. With core values, choices and directions can become easier.

Roy Disney, the brother of Walt and the business mastermind, once said,

“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”

What Are Core Values

The best way to define core values is that they are the essence of what we believe about who we are and what we do. They are characteristics or traits we want to always exhibit.

True core values will

Identify character traits we intend to share
Be at the heart of every action and decision
Be non-negotiable

Why Are Core Values So Important?

Here are two scenarios, both real and true, that pinpoint the importance of having solid core values.

Driving Decisions

I have been working with a non-profit ministry that provides programs within jails. They help prepare inmates to become productive citizens and family members once they return to the community. The gospel message is at the heart of the program and in all the curriculum.

Their program is so successful they are facing high demand for rapid growth. Other jails want the ministry to expand to their facility. The jails where they are now want them to do more.

It’s not all fun and games though. There have been suggestions that maybe they should tone down that religion stuff a bit. Maybe you should do this differently.

Challenges

So they are facing challenges on multiple fronts. If they expand, the team in place will not be enough. They will have to place people at remote locations and empower them to make good decisions. How do they make sure those decisions are consistent with the essence of who they are and what they do?

The other challenge is with the toning down of the faith-based message. Do they make the change to placate these demands? Are they prepared to walk away instead? They could also miss out on some grants with the focus on the gospel message.

Identifying Their Core

To help them with these issues, we started by identifying what their core values are. It took time and there were some passionate discussions and deep looks at what they believed. In the end, they came up with five strong and clear core values that they are prepared to say are non-negotiable. No matter what, we will not sacrifice this.

By having core values identified and on paper, the immediate decisions become easier. They said no to changing their curriculum. They are willing to walk away if taking the gospel message out was a requirement.

In the future, empowered team leaders will be able to make better decisions because they have a yardstick to measure by. They know what the non-negotiables are.

Attracting People

One company I worked for I had a boss who didn’t fully trust me. Now, one of my core values is to always be trustworthy. As far as I know, I never did anything to indicate that I could not be trustworthy. Yet this boss was always suspecting I was going to betray them. Why? They were expecting me to act the way they would have acted in the same situation.

Because of that attitude they did in fact have several employees over time who betrayed their trust. One embezzled funds. Another stole clients and started their own business.

(Side note – why is it that people are not trustworthy will put their trust in others who are not trustworthy? It seems that people without solid values are more gullible than people with strong values.)

Become What You Want

In my mentor John C. Maxwell‘s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership he talks about the Law of Magnetism. This law states that who you attract is not based on what you want, it’s based on what you are. In other words, if you are looking for people of integrity and honesty, but your own integrity and honesty is not consistent, you will attract people of questionable integrity and honesty.

Who you are is who you attract. Even if we hire people with the right values, we won’t keep them if we don’t reflect those qualities.

Start with a Core

We start with core values. What qualities are necessary for consistent and strong performance.

So look around you. Are your people negative? Surly? Dishonest? It’s a hard truth but they didn’t get there on their own. There is an old saying – if you see a turtle on a fencepost you can bet he didn’t get there himself!

Do you have established (and written down) core values personally? What about your team? Your company? How do you make sure you attract the right people now?

Need help identifying your core values? Want to attract the right people? I can help. Contact me TODAY at psimkins(at)BoldlyLead.com to schedule a free Discovery Strategy Session to find out how.

How Setting Boundaries Works with the Lone Wolf

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Boundaries Make the Team and Make the Player

Leaders help make people more productive by setting boundaries for work. Call them expectations, guidance, or whatever other word you choose to use there; except limits – don’t ever use limits. It seems like semantics but it’s not. Limits are perceived as repressive while boundaries or expectations are seen as guiding. Words matter.

Boundaries with the Lone Wolf

Boundaries are especially useful when dealing with the lone wolf team member. Every leader will encounter a lone wolf at one time or another in your journey. You probably recognize the type. They are part of your team yet seem to do their best work when left alone. The lone wolf may likely get along with the other team members but doesn’t seem to do well at either delegating or sharing workload. They are not hostile to others but just prefer to do their part and get it done. The benefit of this is that they are usually hard workers and simply get the job done. As a leader it is inevitable you will encounter at least one lone wolf on your team.

My Lone Wolf Story

One that sticks out for me was someone I worked with on a volunteer team; in fact specifically it was Cub Scouts. Volunteer teams are always a challenge anyway. It’s like herding cats. You want to really test the mettle of a potential leader observe them with a group of volunteers.

Derby Crisis

We had our annual Pinewood Derby coming up less than a month away. This is where the boys between the ages of 6 and 11 make their own little race car out of a small block of pinewood and hold races on a track made for that purpose. It’s a big deal for them and a lot of fun.

The derby chair got overwhelmed and quit. Cancelling the derby was out of the question. So we quickly put together a committee and I was asked to take the lead. We compiled our timeline and our list of things that had to be done. One of the members of this team was my lone wolf. I remembered from previous experiences that when this person was teamed with others to do something she typically did it herself in her own way. It got done quickly and effectively but it was primarily her doing it. For this project she agreed to take on securing the trophies and awards for the derby winners.

Using Boundaries for Results

I COULD have insisted that she work with a teammate to get the work done. After all, we have to think about backup. We have to worry about training someone to do it next year. There are many arguments about why I SHOULD have insisted she work with a team. The one argument against was that she would end up doing it herself anyway and frustrating any team members who wanted to do something. Truthfully, most of them were content to let her do the work – remember, volunteers.

What I did was simply set boundaries for her. I told Jenny (not her real name) what the expectations were as to the type and levels of awards we wanted. She was given a budget. Jenny was given a deadline. And then I set her loose.

You can probably already guess at the outcome. Jenny was done well before the deadline. She was on budget. The trophies and awards were perfect. And overall the derby was a success. Everyone had a great time!

Boundaries Make Sense

It seems counter-intuitive as a leader on the surface. Our job is to get people to work together towards a goal, right? Yet if you look at it, she WAS part of a team and she DID work towards a common goal. I felt that she could best do that in this circumstance by being given guidelines and allowed to do it her way.

Boundaries Make Freedom

The boundaries didn’t tie her down; just the opposite. The boundaries allowed her the freedom to work the way that she worked best. And yet at the same time, the boundaries ensured that the results were consistent with what we needed even if it wasn’t exactly the way I would have done it. If you are working with a lone wolf, sometimes the worst thing you can do is try to make them be something they are not. It is often best to leverage the way they work and how they work to meet the immediate need.

Boundaries work with not just the lone wolf but with everyone on the team. Author and coach Dr. Henry Cloud once wrote that

Every human being must have boundaries in order to have successful relationships or a successful performance in life.

So we set boundaries for teams, for individuals, and as leaders we especially set them for ourselves. It works for the lone wolf, it works for us too.

Unsure about where the boundaries are or how to set them? I can help. Contact me at psimkins(at)BoldlyLead.com to schedule a FREE Discovery Strategy Session.