Prepare Your Leadership

Hello. Happy Monday. If you're in the Midwest or Minnesota specifically, it's finally getting warmer. If you're around other parts of the country, I'm sure you have probably experienced the nicer weather. It's just Duluth, Minnesota. Once it finally gets above freezing regularly, it's a big deal. Here. I'll wait a couple minutes for some people to join and then we'll get started talking about the different generations in the workplace and how can we navigate this? Hi, Shannon. Give it one more minute or so until see if more people join tools.

Hi. This is talking about how the weather is finally nice here in northern Minnesota for the first time all spring. Got some good storms, though. Nothing compared to the rest of the country. But okay, let's get into the differing generations in the workplace. So let's start. Have you observed generational differences impacting your team dynamics and your workplace? Just kind of think about that. You could throw it in the chat if you want, but how has different generations impacted your workplace?

Let's get into how they differ. Baby boomers are seen in research, have been seen to be more optimistic, more socially competent. Their self esteem is more based on their motivation and their drive. Moving on to Gen X, this generation in research has been shown to be less motivated by promotions and raises. Really looking at work life balance. They seek more opportunities for continued education and at more high levels, for independence and resourcefulness. Millennials and research appreciate more feedback from their superiors and more explicit instructions on their work.

They value more honesty and leadership, and prefer and display high. And millennials prefer more face to face communication, open dialogues, and being listened to and valued for their ideas. That's awesome. I'm glad you thrive in multigenerational work environments. It can be tricky, but once you realize that there are no large differences, mainly just the values. But we'll get to that in a minute. And then lastly, Gen Z, which I'm a part of, desires more autonomy in the workplace than all previous generations.

They prioritize honesty similar to millennials, and also enjoy that face to face communication, and then also more social responsibilities for their leaders and organizations. And this face to face communication, this research was done before COVID so I can't speak to now. I didn't find anything after COVID, but before COVID Gen Z was showing more interest in face to face communication. So that could change for all generations too. So what does this mean? What do all these differences means? It just means that while people are different in generations, it's not because of the generations, it's just because they grew up differently, they have different values, they're motivated by different things.

Gen Z and millennials are more motivated by work life balance and things outside of work, while older generations have been shown to prioritize more that the work environment and raises and promotions. So I know you said that you thrive in multi generational work. So in what ways do you provide feedback and guidance to different generations who may value different things? That's one thing to think about, because getting to know these generations is the first step, because it's not a whole different type of person, it's just that they have different values.

So asking them questions about what motivates them to work, why do you show up to work? Can be the first step to kind of figuring out this multi generational work environment. And it starts with leadership to set that example. But when I say leadership, and I've said this before on other lives, is leadership is not about the position that you hold. It's about the actions that you take. So anybody can be a leader, an intern could be a leader, and the senior executive can be a leader. So it just depends on who is the one who is demonstrating the good behaviors and kind of pushing everybody and motivating everybody.

So along with that, transformational leadership, which is in the aspect of transformational leadership is what I call situational leadership has been shown to be a key driver into navigating multi generations, teams and in the workplace. And this is because by being a situational leader, you can be more aware and kind of change your leadership style depending on what team you're in, what environment you're in, and what the situation is. So these situational leaders will go into a meeting or a sales pitch or anything and be more aware and be more mindful of who they're engaging with, know their audience, ask them questions, and be able to determine how they lead based on their team.

So that's kind of a little bit about generations in the workplace. Stick around. We have JC on in 20 minutes at 1230, and you can check the whole calendar for Cadre here on the app if you click the calendar icon. So I hope you have a great rest of your Monday. Thanks for joining. Bye.