In yesterday’s Advisor, we got the first three must-know characteristics of Millennials from our guest expert. Today, she gives us the last three qualities about Millennials that you need to learn in order to better manage and train this generation.
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To recap: Martha Maznevski, IMD professor, acknowledges that we’ve all read plenty about Millennials before: They are used to being told they are good all the time from a young age. They are not ready for real-world setbacks. All they want is instant gratification. They lack loyalty. The list goes on.
While some of these characteristics have some truth to them, they can be said about previous generations as well. The stereotype of a Millennial is a digital version of what 20-year-olds have been like since the industrial revolution.
Here are the last 3 things that today’s leaders need to know to really harness the power of Millennials (for the first 3, go here).
4. Assumptions about privacy, boundaries and roles are fluid and permeable. This can be good and bad. We have all heard horror stories of young adults suffering consequences for what they post on social media, like that friend of a friend who got fired for calling their boss a “jerk” on Facebook.
But it can work in a positive way. Not submitting to antiquated hierarchical structures allows Millennials to think creatively and find business opportunities where others might not imagine there were any.
While leaders should watch out for unintended consequences, they should also encourage younger employees’ creativity to think beyond the established way of doing things.
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5. Power is distributed and control requires permission. In other words, Millennials don’t put up with bad bosses. They don’t listen to authority if they don’t agree.
This might seem like a challenge, but in the long run, the sooner people stop accepting poor leadership, leaders will have to improve. Everyone will benefit.
The lesson: Don’t be a lazy leader. Make sure your millennial employees understand why your organization and team are doing what they are doing. Don’t just say “Do it because I said so.”
Also, don’t neglect leadership development. Keep investing in your leadership capabilities so you can motivate your millennial employees.
6. They are not good at boring but necessary work. Millennials don’t like to concentrate on boring tasks that lead to mastery and build character if those tasks don’t have clear benefit. In order to develop expertise and wisdom in any industry, people have to invest in nonglamorous grunt work to get to know their sector by heart. These types of experiences also help build patience to work through a problem until it’s solved.
Today’s senior managers should put in extra effort to show the digital cowboys why the hard work is important. Leaders need to make sure that entry-level talent know that having a deep understanding of the different aspects of an industry will help them in more senior roles later on.
Companies and organizations by and large have been good at getting Millennials in the door for a while now, but they have been more challenged about getting them to transition to higher levels of responsibility.
If senior managers follow these 6 pieces of advice, they can tap into Millennials’ strengths and help them become the next generation of leaders.
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Martha Maznevski is professor of Organizational Behavior and International Management at IMD. She will be leading a daily interactive discussion on Millennials at Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP), the unique global business program at IMD, which takes place from June 21–26, 2015.
She also teaches in Strategies for Leadership for female executives and the IMD-CKGSB Dual Executive MBA, which builds knowledge and networks to do business with China and the world.