Week 4

Leadership Formulation

Formulating Leadership

In today's workforce, there are several ways in which organizations can pursue individual or group talent to represent all it stands for and how it would like to be presented to the workforce. Successfully recruiting people should start with the organization realizing what its purpose is and how it plans to remain relevant along with many other organizations doing the same things. Once recruited and trained, it is important organizations find a means of retaining these individuals who excel in all areas and portray the characteristics of one who can eventually lead the staff in their charge as well as ensure new talent is brought in to keep the organization growing.

Leadership Development

Leadership development is a critical focus area for any organization that needs to be successful. In such a constantly changing business world leadership trends and practices need to keep evolving to adapt to the shifts in the environment (Snyder, 2013). One of the rapidly increasing trends in leadership development is the increased hiring and development of millennial workers into leadership positions. Leadership needs a lot of skills and experience, and as much as an organization may want to put millennial workers into leadership positions, they need to make sure that they are ready. Best practices for increasing the number of millennial leaders in an organization include:

Leadership Training

Organizations need to ensure that they engage their millennial workforce in both internal and external leadership training sessions. Leadership training is necessary for developing leadership skills and competencies in millennial leaders. This works as a mentorship program to enable experienced leaders to pass knowledge and expertise in leadership, they have gained with experience to the millennial. This is helpful since it allows them to gain leadership expertise which positions them to be viable for leadership positions in the organization.

Delegation of Responsibilities

This is a role that is very difficult for most managers in an organization since they fear incompetence. A delegation of roles and responsibilities is, however, crucial in developing millennial leaders since it gives the millennial workers and individuals the chance to show what they can do and a learning opportunity on how to carry out various leader roles. They can learn through feedback and thus gives then the opportunity to develop more skilled and empowered leaders.

Giving the Millennial a Voice inside the Organization

This is a form of engagement whereby they are encouraged to raise their opinions on various issues affecting the organization and in the decision-making process. Giving them a voice helps to develop more value for the employees and it also helps the administration to identify individuals among the millennial employees with the potential of being leaders. This also contributes to expand their skills in communication and encourage them to appreciate the culture of inclusion which is essential for any leader. With these skills, they can, therefore, can be better leaders (Wang, 2017).

Presenting to the Upper Echelon

To present this information to the senior management, there are two methods that I would utilize. The first step would be to write a proposal to the senior managers. The proposal would state the need in the organization and why it is important to have more millennials in a leadership development strategic plan and appropriate leadership positions. The proposal would be concise with the purpose of showing the senior management team that there is an opportunity to make the organization more successful by including the Millennials in leadership. In addition, the proposal would be a request to meet with the senior managers: to further discuss the needs and the above-described ways of developing millennial leaders to enable the organization to reap the benefits of millennial leadership. The meeting would have a power point presentation, brief but comprehensive to further elaborate the details to the senior managers.

Conclusion

Every generation has been stereotyped with pros and cons which the fortunate world inherits. Whether it is the Baby Boomers, GenX's or Millennials, each generation has its set of distinct interpretations. The biggest differences are in understanding the relationships, values, behavior and interactions each generation has been exposed to and enculturated with from sources such as parents, teachers, role models, dogmas, media, and historical events. Developing any generational talent requires the ability to identify potential challenges between generations but most importantly understanding and appreciating those differences. In that scope of understanding is where the real value can be recognized by leaders and followers of all generations. Changing organizational culture begins with how the culture was created and with what generational mindset. Furthermore, many organizations are aware of differences in generations and realize that the disciplines and strategies once appealed to previous generations have failed in its attempts at conforming traditional practices on non-traditional individuals. For companies to grow organically, they will need to adopt an approach that fosters, nurtures and develops effective leadership abilities. Providing an environment which is cognizant of both strength and weaknesses but is conducive for individuals to progress and evolves is paramount.

References

Snyder, S. (2013). Leadership and the art of struggle: how great leaders grow through challenge and adversity. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Wang, V. (2017). Encyclopedia of strategic leadership and management. Hershey: IGI Global, Disseminator of Knowledge.

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