It’s All About Me

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Recently, I had a conversation with my Millennial niece, nephew and his significant other. Well, at least I tried, but the conversation didn’t go far. We were talking about generations and I just happened to refer to them as Millenials, which brought a very strong and decisive smack from the significant other. She was certain she and the others were not Milennials. Only showing her the birth year range, generally placed at those born in the early 1980s to early 2000s, got her to back down, albeit unhappily. Milennials Despite having written a paper on Milennials, she apparently had missed that fact that Millenials and Generation Y are synonyms. Confusing, I know.

The alacrity and adamancy of her response shocked me, I confess. But it got me thinking. So much has been written about how to manage Millenials, how to work with Millenials, what Millenials want from work, etc., but I’ve seen very little about how Milennials will lead. Much has been written about the mass exodus of executive directors and other senior managers that we are beginning to face and will continue to face over the next several to five years. And we know that the replacements for many of those positions will come from the ranks of Millenials, yet I have seen very little written about what Millennials as leaders will mean for the future of our sector.

And it is a question that has gnawed at me since the sort-of-conversation. Studies, and personal experience, show that they are also very, very confident—even when their knowledge, skills and experience should have them being less so. I’m not a fan of overly confident, strident leaders who squash and quash others’ ideas. Studies have also shown that Millenials are far more narcissistic than their parents’ (my) generation, and, once again, I am not a fan of narcissistic leaders. All about me and not about mission doesn’t work in the nonprofit sector. In fact, if I look at the traits attributed to this generation, some correlate very nicely with being a leader. Or, at least have the potential to, if controlled properly. According to William Strauss and Neil Howe, authors of multiple books on Millenials, this generation possesses seven “core” traits.

Sheltered: protected by hardware (baby seats, bike helmets), systems (school lockdowns, airport security) and parents (overprotected, helicopter parents, fighting their children’s battles), others have seen to their physical and psychic welfare from the cradle to college and beyond. (I actually had a son bring his father to a graduate school open house. Seriously!) Do we want leaders who cannot fend for themselves, whose first instinct is to call in mom, dad, grandmom? Leaders who expect others to right their messes.
Special: when taking a drink from a sippy cup is met with a proud and gleeful “Good job, sweetie!” or a trophy is received for just showing up, it is hard not to grow up believing you are an ace—and special. Not just special to the family, but to the world. And that is Millenials: they see themselves as exceptionally special. Which, of course, they are. But what will “it is all about me” mean in a leader of an organization where it is supposed to be all about mission, clients, donors, etc.?
Confident: this is a no-brainer, if you’ll excuse me. If you are applauded for everything that you do, no matter what it is (and yes, I confess, I’m guilty of much of this), it is hard not to develop into a very strong, self-confident individual. And self-confidence in a leader is great and very important, but not if it blinds you to the abilities of others, to helping to instill confidence in individuals, teams and organizations and to over-shadowing the needs of an organization and your clients.
Team-oriented: Millenials like collaborations—at least amongst themselves—and don’t like hierarchies. Collaborations—but it would have to be across generations (which they aren’t so fond of)—and the flattening of hierarchies could bring very positive changes to a workplace, but ultimately someone needs to make a decision, take the responsibility and be held accountable.
Conventional: curiously, Millenials are okay with their parents’ values, but more open minded. And unlike their parents, many of whom protested against “the man,” they want rules and norms. Rules, norms and open mindedness are all good things to have in a leader, provided, of course, that the rules aren’t too tight and the open mindedness is not just to what their peers are doing but to all.
Pressured: given that this generation grew up with packed calendars of this lesson and that sport and even scheduled times to play, there is a tremendous sense of the need to keep going, to always be doing and pressure to excel. Down time is a nightmare. One of the greatest stresses in the nonprofit sector is the inability to find work-life balance—a common complaint from executive directors. Yet if the Millennial can’t model the balanced lifestyle, this problem is only going to get worse, rather than better.
Achieving: always focused on the end goal and the next achievement, this generation isn’t concerned with the value of the process but what’s at the end. Education and professional development are means to ends, not an end in and of themselves. This trait in a leader just might scare me the most.

Some studies have resulted in Millenials being labeled as lazy, “all about me,” focused on extrinsic rewards (money, labels, wealth), and less interested in giving back and helping others than previous generations. Then there are the other traits—the ones that parents, grandparents, teachers, etc., complain about: instant gratification (want to know something, look it up on your phone—NOW); no long-term planning (how will you get from the airport to the hotel? when I get there I’ll use Uber) multi-tasking (which always involves at least some form of technology and at least one other thing: texting and driving and eating); the incessant, perhaps even compulsive, need to let everyone know what they are doing and thinking—all of the time (i.e., Instagram, Facebook, Twitter); and short attention spans (six seconds or 142 characters). These characteristics scare me the most when I think of Millenials as our future leaders. Will they grow out of them?

The third annual, global Deloitte Millennial Survey does give us some insight into how this generation operates as working adults—and leaders. Millenials want to work at organizations that are dynamic, innovative and working for change and to solve the world’s ills. Sadly, only 6% of the 7,800 surveyed see those solutions coming from the nonprofit sector; the majority (52%) sees the promise in the for-profit sector. (That fact is worth a blog in and of itself!) When it comes to leadership, Millenials want it open and inclusive and they definitely want to be in the ranks of leadership, and they want their career trajectory to be quick and high; yet, only 36% of those currently in a position of leadership said they felt ready to be a leader when they assumed that position. Scary. The good news? They want help when it comes to leadership development: they want their employers to invest in them—as their parents did. The other good news? They are philanthropic: 63% gave to charity in the past year and 43% classified themselves as “active” volunteers.

This doesn’t portend well for our sector. The vast majority of Millenials want to be part of the change, yet only 6% see our sector as the source of that change—clearly an insufficient number to replace the number of shoes marching out of our executive director and other senior management positions. And those who do choose our sector will bring with them very different expectations, needs and goals—and I don’t think we are ready for any of that.