Tuesday, October 20, 2009

5 Generations of Leadership - At Once!

Picking up from yesterday's post, a recent Harvard Business Review blog post pointed out that in the very near future, there will be five generations of leaders working alongside each other in many organizations - including the church.

By 2015, the Baby Boomers will cede the majority of the workforce to the Millennials. An interesting side note: due to their smaller size, Gen X will never have the majority spot in the workplace - effectively skipping a generation in five years.

Considering the exponential increase of knowledge available, the advent of social networking, and the shrinking of the global connections, is there any wonder that the possibility of a huge gap in leadership could be developing?

The post poses four questions worth considering as a church leader:
  1. Does your organization's brand appeal not only externally to your target audience but also internally to each of the generations in your leadership?
  2. Are you sourcing the next generation of talent where they live - social networking sites?
  3. Are you leveraging innovative learning methodologies such as games, simulations, reverse mentoring, e-coaching, peer-to-peer learning, and informal learning to accelerate learning across the organization?
  4. Are you preparing your leaders for the next generation of team members? Do you current leaders have the skills and tools needed to communicate with the hyper-connected young leaders coming up through your organization?

Tomorrow is here - are you ready?

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