Purpose-seeking makes them unstoppable.
Image by Andrei Castanha on Unsplash
Do you remember Spice girls, Macarena, Backstreet Boys, the Fifth element, Tamagotchi, Game Boy? Yes? Congratulations! You also grew up in the splendid 90s and early 2000s times.
When I started working in a corporate company, our boss was not impressed with this new wave of young people floating in.
Why would he be?
All these sociologists, economists, human scientists, musicologists, and other weird absolvents who thought they ate the world.
Plus they had a bad image. When they were bored, they jumped to a different job. It was the first generation that the corporate world had to ‘entertain’. Yet, this is exactly why they are the greatest managers now.
Millennials Are Job Hoppers
Millennials are sometimes considered in-betweeners. They are constantly between relationships, studies, flats, or jobs.
They like jumping from one thing to the other and trying different things.
Millennials are a bit more free-spirited, more able to go into new places, to feel more assertive and fearless about trying new things. — Payal Kadakia
They redefined loyalty and career perception. Variety nourishes experience and flexibility.
What I love about working with millennial managers is that they bring value and have an opinion. Different jobs mold their communication skills and social sensitivity. So, seeing a resume of a manager who led teams in different countries, companies, and areas is a positive thing and nothing to be afraid of.
Millennials Seek Purpose
What is your purpose? In a Cambridge dictionary, we get this answer:
Millennials don’t work without purpose. They look for ideas behind and meaning to tasks they have to perform. Try telling them that we have to do this because it has always been done like that.
They would freak out.
As the first generation connected to the internet, they orient themselves quickly and efficiently in many topics and areas. They simply know if you are right to not and they do not wait to tell you.
As employees, they seek innovation and fulfillment of their purpose. As managers, their purpose is to serve others and make their work meaningful. They care. They want to be the best managers for others. This motivation is coming from their hunger for meaning.
Millennials can infect their enthusiasm to their teams. They give meaning behind performance reviews, they are socially savvy and true to their words. Value their opinion and listen to their ideas, they can save your business.
Geeks as Managers? Sure Thing!
Are you a Geek? Geeks were not considered the most suitable for management positions back in the 2000s. Millennials broke the rules down and proved that anyone can be a great manager regardless of gender, studies, or geekism.
For millennials, being a geek is a positive thing, and we see people proudly self-identifying themselves as geeks. — Alan Schaaf
In my corporate career, introverted, geeky people were not promoted to management roles as often as extroverted colleagues. Managers felt that they were not suited to the positions. They had an image of a manager being a clown who entertains his teams and juggles their complaints.
Luckily, it changed with the wave of new Millennials managers.
How you would define a great manager? Some qualities come to mind:
Being positive
People-oriented
Calm
Inspiring
I don’t see a reason why a geeky person could not do the job. On the flip side, of course, he or she can!
Millennials Believe They Could Do Better
Do you always feel there is room for improvement? Yes, you are right. There is. I trained managers who were doing their job well. Yet, they wanted to work on themselves more and continuously. They did it for themselves and their teams.
Self-reflection is a common strategy to be built a dialogue. Millennials don’t like standing still. They push for more. That can create pressure on themselves and their teams.
It can even lead to competitiveness.
So, correction is sometimes needed not to go out of rails and lose a big picture perspective. Overconfidence is a drive and saves a lot of money and time. Let them aim high, but make sure there is a co-pilot present.
Millennials believe in themselves.
While younger generation Z is confident but without results. Boomers have results and life wisdom. What about Millennials?
When they believe they can do the job. They can do the job. We can rely on them and their judgment. Give them a chance and they surprise you with the quality of their performance.
Millennials are perfect workers, even if short-term.
Millennials Keep On Learning
The last and very important trait is their ability to learn. We talked about adaptation, flexibility, etc. But it is the hunger for knowledge that makes Millennials perfect managers.
They study new practices, welcome progressive and alternative ideas, and love experimenting.
They are the right candidates for jobs that seek:
Stress-resilience
Fast-paces environment
International teams
Millennials develop efficiencies. They delegate tasks. So, they have time to manage their teams. Being up to date is running through business relationships, as well as the latest technology. Plug your millennial manager into a team that needs automation and new processes. You won't be disappointed.
Learning is what makes these managers motivated. When they feel there are no opportunities or time to learn, they are likely to slip from your hands. Letting them be creative pays off.
Millennials Are Creative
Speaking of creativity. Millennials might have a sense of drama, but they also put their minds into surprisingly fun solutions. Where boring meetings end, Millennials start.
There are no problems with difficult solutions. Their confidence, flexibility, and experience make them brilliant in generating new ideas and putting them into practice.
The main question to answer is what is the purpose. Why do we do it? To whom is it supposed to serve? If we can undercover that, millennials find a way to make it happen.
They are not afraid of trials and mistakes. They embrace them.
Millennials managers are great at getting teams on their side. They carefully explain what is happening and why. Their transparency gives them credibility and builds respect for the organization. So, if want teams who are ready to go for any challenge, nominate a Millennial manager to lead them.
Meaning, creativity, and respect will start running in your business culture.
Take away
Millennials managers are so fun to work with. They are blindly confident but also honest. They speak a lot. They have a lot of opinions. As long as, it makes sense to them, they go for it.
You can’t stop them from thinking about improvements. They are positive and lead their teams to achieve challenging goals. Hire them as they are the best managers available now.
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