Millennials are soon coming into managerial and leadership positions all over the world. That is why millennials’ leadership development should begin right now, as millennials are making their entry into the workforce. This would make them ready in the coming years when they must lead and steer an organization towards growth and success.
It is the responsibility of the current leaders and managers to initiate leadership development for millennials. If you are looking to determine how to cultivate millennials as leaders, you have come to the right place. In this article, we will look at various ways to develop leadership skills in millennials.
Eight ways for enabling millennials’ leadership development
Developing millennial leaders is easier with the following eight ways given below:
Identifying their talents
This is easier said than done, but they must learn about their unique talents. You can assign them various tasks each time that require different skills. This would help you understand what they are good at. In this way, you can help them identify their specialties, and then you can work with them to develop their talents.
Millennials’ leadership development is easier when you develop their natural talents instead of forcing the leadership upon them. That would naturally turn them into leaders. First, they need to figure out the answers to questions like their core passions and what their major competencies are.
Guidance from a mentor
A budding professional needs a mentor to go all the way and transform into a leader. The guidance from a mentor is invaluable as it provides them with a clear picture of what it means to be a leader. Even thirty minutes with a mentee every week can work wonders for their professional growth.
A mentor’s guidance is something that cannot be found in books. Mentorship helps them understand the value of soft skills and provides them with encouragement and motivation.
Reading Books
Books are a great way of learning, so you need to make the young professionals understand the importance of books. They need to foster the habit of learning because there is a plethora of knowledge out there in books that can help them in their journey of becoming better leaders.
Books like “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” “The One Minute Manager,” “The Effective Executive,” and “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People” are considered classics in the corporate world and rightly so. Thus, it is never a waste of time for millennials to read books like these and gain leadership knowledge from immensely successful leaders.
Online Resources
We live in a world of online information overload. While it can be hard to filter out useful information, it can be really helpful once you find it. Many email newsletters, social media channels, and blogs have some of the best leadership advice for millennials.
Since millennials love to do everything digitally, they should be encouraged to scourge the internet for managerial and leadership content. They should be encouraged to network over social media with millennials in leadership roles. Networking with someone from their own generation and taking their advice on becoming great leaders can prove to be extremely helpful.
Developing Soft Skills
When someone learns to be a good leader, they soon realize that being a leader does not mean having numerous technical skills. Instead, a good leader is supposed to be adept in soft skills such as high confidence, public speaking, communication, decision-making, and more like these.
Therefore, the current managers and leaders should ensure that they are nourishing the soft skills of the newer generation of employees.
Working on clear communication
Communication is one of the most important leadership skills for millennials. A leader must know how to communicate with coworkers as well as clients. This is a prerequisite for being a good manager or leader.
As mentors, you should help them develop their communication skills and teach them the art of communicating well. There are a lot of resources on developing communication skills that can be provided to millennials so that they can make it better.
Learning delegation without micromanagement
As managers, they will be required to delegate tasks among the employees. Thus, they must learn delegation without micromanaging. You must show them that delegation should be done authoritatively but do not expect employees to do the things your way.
Employees should be free to do things differently if the task is getting completed. Micromanaging is often counterproductive as it shines a negative light on the manager, which can lead to disruption in the workplace environment.
Recommended Read: The 2022 Guide to Micromanagers: Signs, Causes, Solutions
Leading in all areas of life
The best way to turn millennials into great leaders of the future is to develop the millennial’s leadership style. They should be motivated to lead outside the office as well. Gen X should help them take control of their lives, not just professional but personal as well.
Conclusion
A millennial leadership statistic states that 15% of Millennials are already in management positions. Therefore, it is the need of the hour for the previous generation to incorporate the strategies and tips mentioned in the article for millennials’ leadership development.
