Gen Z may be the best generation of managers for the workplace of the 21st Century, according to Julie Coates, one of the foremost authorities on generations.
“Gen Z managers know that no one is normal,” she states. “Success depends on embracing individual differences and turning those differences into assets that can build organizations. We will never return to the way things used to be in the workplace,” Coates concludes.
The youngest generation in the workforce today, Gen Z was born roughly between 1995 and 2015, so the oldest are around age 28 today. In the first research done in North America on Gen Z as managers, Coates interviewed local Portland workers and Gen Z managers.
She found seismic differences between young managers and older bosses. “You can be sure Gen Z will manage differently,” Coates says.
Gen Z’s most popular leadership style is an “affiliative” management style that emphasizes emotional cohesion and personal trust, Coates states. By comparison, Baby Boomer managers embrace an “autocratic” management style. “For Gen Z, gender, race and neurological differences does not matter,” she asserts.
Gen Z managers understand anxiety and depression is at an all-time high in the workplace, and they have developed a flexible and responsive management style that likely will be the new normal for the rest of the century, Coates predicts.
Coates’ will present her pioneering work at the Contract Training Conference in June as well as at the LERN Annual Conference in November. Click on “Events & Education” at the LERN Home Page for more.
