Leadership is one of my favorite topics. I recently wrote an article about some of the intergenerational changes in leadership and thought I’d share a brief version of it with you; highly relevant to the financial leaders in this community!
In 2021, I signed up for the Hero’s Journey with Darren Hardy. This is a year-long training course, targeted to business owners and those in leadership positions in their company, in their community, or their family.
So, what’s the ‘Hero’s Journey’ all about? Mr. Hardy’s definition: ‘A Hero is simply an ordinary person put in an extraordinary circumstance—who takes action.’ I think you would agree that the last year-plus has been ‘an extraordinary circumstance’ for all of us, requiring all of us to dig deep as we strive to stay in business and thrive in very odd times.
He goes on to point out that the leaders of today require very different skills than the leaders 30, 40, or 50 years ago. We have more generations working together in the work force, more ethnicities, more cultures, and more women than any other time in history. In Module 1, five (5) generations are identified. I found this fascinating as I stacked up our staff against these categories—I bet you will, too.
- The Builders, Traditionalists, Silent Generation, born 1930-1945
- Baby Boomers, born 1946-1964
- Generation X, born 1965-1980
- Millennials, Generation Y, born 1981-1994
- Generation Z, born after 1995
There’s a great quote by BB King—’The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.’ I’ve had the pleasure of working with many business owners. They’re hardworking and deeply care about their businesses. Many are very engaged in their trade, participating on committees, advocating for their industry. It seems like there’s a perception that this ‘leadership learning stuff’ is for big companies, people with C-suite titles, not our ‘regular’ small businesses.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Each of you impact many people, every day. So how much time do you spend honing your leadership skills? What if you took Darren Hardy’s advice and carved out 30 minutes every day to read a book on the topic?
I have this short list of five goals that I see every morning: Model the Way; Encourage the Heart; Enable Others to Act; Challenge the Process; Inspire a Shared Vision. These originate with James Kouzes and Barry Posner as part of their research findings to discover what behaviors were common to leaders who make extraordinary things happen, right back to Darren Hardy’s definition. Where could you focus in 2022 to have a bigger impact in your family, with your friends, in your organization, and with your team?
Click here to read the full article.
------------------------------
Catherine Wendt
Syscon, Inc.
Scottsdale AZ
(630) 850-9039
------------------------------