Successfully Leading a Multi-Generational Workplace

Everyone has a unique personality. A person's generation is one element, but there are many others. Generation included, these attributes affect your team's motivation, teamwork, satisfaction — the list goes on.

The good news is you have control over one of the major influences in most people's lives: the culture at work. When you use it correctly, company culture can help you overcome many of the generational stress points you would otherwise experience leading a mixed-age team.

Find Your Unique Path Forward

Your leadership practice is developed from your own unique experiences. Beyond that, you adapt to changing situations and apply the tools necessary to get the job done. Your team members are doing the same thing for their own roles.

With that in mind, the best advice in this type of situation is to seek specific guidance. Listen, learn and act. You can get advice from trusted team members, coaches — and even from unexpected sources.

One of the best resources on how to deal with your multi-generational leadership issue is right in front of you: your team. Apply your active listening and empathy skills. Once you start to identify the individual and organizational problems hampering performance, there will be no need to define people as Millennials, Baby Boomers or Generation X.

Lead With Culture

In fact, most problems leaders have with multi-generational workforces aren't generational. They come from an issue with culture.

Culture is the part of your organization, which shows everyone how to work together to achieve success. If team members are falling back on their generational default behaviors, rather than owning the company culture, then it's time to put some work into refining and defining your guidelines.

Guide Your Other Leaders

Of course, there are times when a strong culture still needs some help to overcome generational hurdles. One of the biggest challenges in this category is leading multi-generational leadership teams.

Even with the strongest vision and the most clearly defined culture, a highly competitive team can let other priorities rise above reaching an understanding and moving your organization towards success. The solution is simple: golf.

I believe golf and leadership have a lot in common on a figurative level, but, in this situation, I know that playing the game directly grew my leadership practice. As soon as I entered the workforce after college, I realized how integral golf was to success in the professional business environment I had just joined. Simply put, it gave me a way to connect with and learn from other leaders in a relaxed environment.

As we live longer lives and spend more of our lives at work, chances are that multi-generational workplaces will only become more common. Recognizing the individuality of each team member and each challenge will continue to be key to success.