Leading Young Professionals

Interns and entry-level young professionals (~ages 19 to 26) belong to Gen Z (ages 8 to 24) and Millennial (ages 25 to 40) generations. They have a reputation for being very talented and knowledgeable.

However, they have unique qualities and desires that are incompatible with traditional leadership styles of authority, control, and one-directional communications. Older generations accepted this status quo leadership, but Gen Z and Millennials demand more personal, inclusive, supportive, and inspiring leadership.

This article includes three brief sections:

1.     What Young Professionals Need from Their Leaders

2.     How to Lead Young Professionals

3.     The Framework (Support, Inspire, Feelings, Engagement)

What Young Professionals Need from Their Leaders?  

• A realistic assessment of the job (the upside and downside) to manage Gen Z's expectations. Consider that some Gen Z-ers lack previous work experience and enter the workplace, believing that work will be fulfilling, fun, meaningful, and gratifying.

• Preparation for the job with extensive on-boarding and formalized work contracts. Recognize team members' individuality, countering the belief that one-size-fits-all and creating a personalized approach to each individual.

• Face-to-face communication and resources to learn communication skills. Despite being digital natives, young professionals desire face-to-face communications. Also, some need an opportunity to develop additional communication skills,

• A challenging environment to develop skills, participate in meaningful work, and experience a positive work environment

• Growth opportunities, assignments, and support to stimulate Gen Z's orientation for achievement.  Gen Z is the most achievement-oriented of all the generations. (Gen Z Achievement).

• Leadership that is connective, authentic, and transparent to inspire and motivate.

• A perspective that young professionals are essential team members with valuable ideas and contributions.  

• Sensitivity to stress because Gen Z reports stress levels that exceed all the generations (APA 2020 Stress in America Survey, APA Study 2020).

How to Lead Young Professionals

These two quotes moved me. Together, I felt they embodied the leadership style (for leaders, managers, and supervisors) to foster an optimum environment for young professionals to thrive.    

"Leadership is inspiring and motivating a group of people to exert themselves to help achieve a common goal." (Christine Kininmonth / 27th January 2020). Leadership Forum

"Leadership is the courage to acknowledge your team members have feelings."  (Dr. Brené Brown) Leadership Forum

Inspire. How do you inspire? Work with your team to create a vision that generates passion. Make it come alive as a building block for your goals, actions, and decisions, instead of gathering dust posted on the wall. Engage your team to formulate the behaviors and values that are needed to achieve the vision. Incorporate those behaviors and values into training and critical metrics for performance appraisals.

Inspire teams with a culture of feedback by coaching and mentoring team members on the vision and behaviors. Promote the value of feedback and make it part of everyday life.

Inspire by coaching instead of bossing. These young professionals want to learn, understand, and to be part of the solution. Explaining the why behind the work and laying out some steps to achieve the goal with coaching is far more motivating than just being told to do something.

 Recognize Feelings. Most organizational cultures deny feelings, with many people pretending to be okay when they not. A balance is needed - no tears and emotional outbreaks, but instead, a greater sensitivity to others' feelings.   

In general, being ignored, put down, slighted, overlooked, or receiving an angry outburst,  produce negative feelings. The result? Disengagement, dissatisfaction, and demoralization. People start looking for other opportunities, productivity drops, and negativity increases.

In contrast, positive emotions generate greater productivity.  When people receive praise, appreciation, feel included, and receive constructive feedback, they are energized and committed.

As a leader, recognize the impact of your words and actions on emotions. There are times to correct people and think through the words that you will use and their impact. There are times you are satisfied with work; remember to praise. And there are times in between to express appreciation, focus on individuals you tend to overlook and spend time getting to know them. 

The Framework – SIFE

Here is a framework for leading young professionals. It consists of Support, Inspiration, Feelings, and Engagement - the acronym is SIFE. Below are questions to create action items and goals.

• Have you cultivated a SUPPORTIVE posture? Do you think through growth opportunities, and who needs what? Do you ensure fairness so that everyone gets a chance to grow through successes and failures? Are you providing extra support for your remote team? They may require you to help with time management and structure, as well as inclusion. Are you coaching instead of telling? Does everyone feel included?

• What have you done every day to INSPIRE your team? Are you promoting the vision through your words, decisions, goals, and action items? Do you remind your team of the overarching goals and the daily progress? Do you personalize the messages? Do you identify what is working well and what needs improvement?   

• What FEELINGS are you eliciting from your team? Negative or Positive? Motivating or Defeating? Do you see a difference in productivity?  

• What have you done to improve ENGAGEMENT? Organize frequent interactions to coach, deliver feedback, listen to suggestions and ideas. Ensure you talk less and listen more.  Are you authentic?  Do you share stories about how you learned the job and grew? How you overcame obstacles and situations where you failed? Are you relating to your team members?  Take some time to personalize your approach and get to know your team members, and notice what makes each member unique and how they prefer communication and feedback? Do they have limitations, such as family situations? Can you be flexible to accommodate their needs without jeopardizing the business?

Lesley Tracy

http://Changingbehaviorsconsulting.com      Lesley@changingbehaviorsconsulting.com.

Changing Behaviors Consulting guides Gen Z and businesses in creating greater retention, productivity, and engagement by working together with you and your team to build and execute tailored action plans. Also, we follow up to reinforce the changes with metrics and evaluations. I welcome your comments.