Leadership in the 21st century has been a curious journey –and I do mean that quite literally. These days you can put a question mark behind any business consideration — questions about resources, pricing, revenue, marketing, process, quality, safety, policy, and sometimes even product portfolios (are we really in the right business?).
Now, to be sure, business has always been about questions and seeking their answers – it’s not that the questions are really new. It’s just that they are coming at us today with such brute force – every day (seemingly every hour). A lot of that has to do with data, specifically the quantity of it. We have so many data points and so many data sources –and that data, instead of answering questions, seems to be unveiling even more of them. We find out that people have a problem with our level of service, even as we have been spending the last 18 months working tirelessly to grind out new processes that improve service.
But perhaps the most compelling questions that we as leaders face in the 21st century are not about products and processes and systems and alliances – as challenging as those are – or even about our customers and pleasing them. Perhaps the toughest questions we face today are actually about the people that work for us.
Those questions used to be the easier ones, or so we thought. Mainly, the questions about keeping and satisfying our employees were purely financial. I will never forget my first “owner-boss” told me about how he calculated the cost of an employee by how many “nickels” he would need to string together for a yearly raise to keep the good ones. (I haven’t even heard the word “nickel” in a business setting for 20 years”).
Obviously, the questions we have at the overall organizational level about attracting, recruiting, hiring, onboarding, engaging and keeping employees (what I refer to as making employment “sticky”) are not a “nickel” proposition these days. In fact, organizations today face questions about their own workforce that can shake them to the very core.
I would argue, however, that the toughest employee questions don’t really happen at the organizational level at all – they actually happen at the local leader level – with the director, manager or supervisor of a group of people. And, in many ways, these are questions that a leader has never had to consider before, at least straight on. Those employee questions go something like this:
- Why should I accept you as my leader?
- Why should I believe you and believe in you?
- Why should I choose to follow you?
Those who are students of or proponents of the “traditional organization”, must sometimes be poking themselves to see if they are really awake when they hear those kinds of questions from company employees. “Really, you have the nerve to ask why you should accept someone as a leader who has been duly appointed by the organization to have that title?” To them, I say “wake up” – it doesn’t really matter “why” (though I will offer up some answers below); what matters is that employees today are asking those questions – and no longer just internally, or even with one another at the coffee house after work hours.
The answers that leaders give to those questions are critical – to the employees, to the organization, and themselves and their future as leaders, and are quite revealing about their motivations and vision for themselves as leaders. One thing that I believe is certain is that if the answers that leaders give to those questions either in their own minds or in their implicit actions and words, are mainly because of “my place on the org chart”, or some other “title” related reasonings, then they may as well start putting their resumes together. Such assertions will not impress or gain the respect capital they need from their teams or probably even their senior leaders in the 21st century workplace.
As to the “why”, there are a myriad of reasons we could offer up about the attitudes of younger generations in the workforce and why they are simply not that impressed with org charts or authority structures. One of the critical reasons is because, well… that’s the way that we have raised them. As parents and teachers, we have consistently preached to our kids about their rights, earnestly instructed them to “speak up” when they have an opinion or what they consider to be a better thought, urged them think critically and not shy away from a debate, and at work we have even encouraged them by validating that those at the front line or in an individual contributor role are the ones that have the real knowledge, they are the ones doing the real work and therefore they should be the ones who should be innovating and improving the way we do it. People in organizations today have taken all of that…and believed it.
Another reason for the “authority revolt” is that far too many younger people in the workforce grew up watching their parents become victims of being over-worked, over-stressed, or overwhelmed by their bosses. They have seen the stress, the tension, the ungodly hours and the physical and mental toll that such conditions have wreaked – and they have decided that they will not become victims of such behaviors.
For those reasons, and more, the younger generations at work will simply not “emotionally accept” leaders at work just because those leaders occupy a space on the org chart. That doesn’t mean they will necessarily start a revolt, but if they do not have a direct manager that fits their idea of “fair”, “just”, “reasonable”, “collaborative”, “communicative” and “humble”, it will impact the degree to which they are willing to commit and engage in the work. Those seem to be the demands of the 21st century workforce. And they look for those responses, not in words or promises, but in leaders’ actions every day in every situation.
One antidote to this problem would be for 21st century leaders to ask themselves those three questions I mentioned above on a regular basis as an introspective exercise:
- “Why should my team members accept me as their leader?”
- “Why should they believe me and believe in me?”
- “Why should they choose to follow me?”
The purpose of this introspection is not to doubt your legitimacy as a leader, but to actually ensure that you are on the right track to meeting the needs and expectations of your team. You see, I am convinced that that the reasons why employees are asking those questions today is because they represent the needs they have to know and understand, to be appreciated and valued, and to catch a clear vision for their work and team. Today, employees want to be treated as full partners of the work, trusted and treated as if their thoughts and ideas matter. And if their direct leader does not give them that they will resist, withdraw, shut down and perhaps quit. And when those employee responses move from becoming individual and isolated situations to something that begins to emerge as a pattern, then organizational leaders begin to see the local leader as the problem and employees as the casualty.
So, when leaders ask themselves those three questions introspectively, what kinds of answers should they be expecting of themselves? It should probably go something like this: Because I have demonstrated that I care for and value every team member; because I have demonstrated that I will work with my team to develop a vision that represents the best work that we do and the best things that we can accomplish; because I have a respectful coaching relationship with each member of the team and I care passionately about their growth and development; and because I advocate for them before the rest of the organization…advocate for the right resources for them to do their job, and advocate as a champion for their talents, skills and abilities.
I believe those are the three right answers to three compelling questions. What do you think?