Risk It | Engage & Understand Your People

By Tyler Head

Maybe it’s worth risking it all. Learning how to lead and serve your people requires much effort; more listening and less talking. More talking with and less talking at.

To do so, we must understand our people. We must learn the language of our team; their wants, needs, pain points, how they are spending their money, and even more so, how they like to spend their time, specifically outside of the workplace.

You might be thinking to yourself, no way. Why would I take the time to understand and get educated on the generational needs, wants, and desires? They work for me, not the other way around.

I am hard-pressed to tell you; that way of thinking is leaving, and quite honestly, it has to go. It serves no one, not even you.

Think with me for a moment. Over the past year, the marketplace where most business takes place has undergone a significant shift, exposing a deep need for generational disconnects to be discussed, broken down, and questioned in hopes of finding better solutions for the way forward together, not in opposition of one another.

However, for this to occur, we, as CEOs and current business leaders, must own the space and make the first move. In a recent article published by The Harvard Law School specifically on Corporate Governance, titled CEO Succession Practices in the Russell 3000 and S&P 500, the writers highlight that the average age of an exiting CEO is 60.2 and an incoming CEO is 54.6. Furthermore, according to marketplace.org in their write-up titled How Millennials Should Lead in The Workplace, the average age of the middle-level managers in these companies is 33, and many of the people they are leading tend to be even younger. However, one thing remains true; the difference in generational wants, needs, and desires is becoming more apparent. If we want to be ahead of the curve or at least in the mix, we must lay down our arms—metaphorically speaking—and lead the way in seeking to understand our people.

Our core human desires are similar across the board; we all deeply desire self-worth and dignity. We don’t have to speak their language to hear them, but simply learn to understand it better.

CEOs and business leaders, it is up to you to make the first move.

At DRYVE Leadership Group, we are set on helping people like you build healthy and high-performance cultures that engage your people.

Book a Leadership Strategy Session with us today!