Leadership styles of Generation X and Millennials

In today's modern businesses, there can be 4 or more different generations working in the same workplace. The leaders in businesses today need to adapt their leadership style to match the demands of the different generations. When people are doing good in a workplace, they tend to give a little extra time to work, so as leaders in a business you want to help and manage the employees to get the most out of them and keep them happy and satisfied at work.  

I have had many different leaders during my work life, and their impact has been both good and bad. The interesting thing is that the way these leaders lead others is different from each other, and they are all from two different generations: Generation X and Generation Y. These two Generations have led me differently, and it has been interesting to study if there is a difference between generational leadership styles. I made interview questions for the generational leaders to answer through e-mail because they couldn't meet and have the interview face-to-face. I could interview one team leader in person, and it was a great conversation about leadership.

Conclusion of my study

The interview questions were built from the theory of my thesis and answers covered the most important part of leadership in today's modern businesses. The answers that I got from the interview did answer what I had been experiencing during my work career with different leaders. The findings from the interview were that Generation X leaders were more influenced by the management of their business and from external directives when they made their decisions. Generation X leaders wanted to have open communication and were not shy about giving constructive feedback to employees, the leaders wanted to motivate the employees as individuals more than to motivate the whole team. What I had experienced with Generation X leaders was that they were not so excited about new technology and change in the work way and so was it in the interview answers also, not so excited about changes in work use of new technology, they had just learned to use something new and right away a new technology was implanted and that was not taken so good from Generation X. When remote work started to be a part of daily work life, Generation X is more likely to be back at the office more often just like before covid-19 pandemic. Leadership style evolution is a great part of Generation X; they have had mentors and leaders they have learned from in good and bad ways, which shows in their answers.  

Generation Y is my Generation, and their way of leading is more team-leading and so is my own experience with my generation leaders. Open communication with a team motivational approach, conflict management is structured, and the leader’s approach to innovative change is kept at a modest level. Generation Y leaders are quite fresh leaders, so they have not evolved their leadership style yet, they are finding their way of leading, but their communication is usually good, and with that, you can come a long way as a leader. Generation Y leaders want to have a work-life balance for themselves and for their employees and new technology is exciting for the leaders and it makes it possible to work remotely and have a life outside of work.  

To do this kind of study with different generations was rewarding and interesting from the start. It would be interesting to study Generation Z's leadership style and how they would lead and compare with the older generations X and Y, I think that it would be close to Generation Y but still find some differences between them as I found between Generation X and Y, but how different is then Generation X compared to Generation Z. I hope that one study of all generations will be published someday.

Biography

Robin Salomaa is working as an enforcement officer or the Finnish state and has worked at different banks and in different positions. In his spare time, he coaches kids in both ice hockey and football and is interested in leadership and leadership styles because leading others in both sports and business can be fulfilling when you can get out the best from a person. The study helps leaders to understand that there is a difference in how generations lead others.