Tamara Erikson – Why Generation X has the Leaders We Need Now
July 25th, 2009 by Dave Allen
Image via http://www.masternewmedia.org
Tammy Erikson, the award winning author, will have her latest book released in December. It is titled ‘What’s Next, Gen X? Keeping Up, Moving Ahead, and Getting the Career You Want‘ and is the result of her studies and interviews with people born roughly during the years between the 1960’s and the 70’s.
She has an article on the Harvard Business Publishing web site where she gives a top level view of her work in this arena. She makes a compelling case for how the next generation of business leaders will be unlike any who have gone before. As she points out in the article – “Perhaps the biggest change from the past: leaders will have to listen and respond to diverse points of view. There will be no dominant voice.” I sense that her book will be a fascinating read. Below are some of the important elements that she says will have shaped the Gen Xers as future business leaders:
“In this context, I’m convinced that Gen X’ers will be the leaders we need. The experiences that shaped those of you who were teens in the late ’70s and ’80s, as I’ve outlined in past posts, translate into valuable contemporary traits and perspectives.
• Your accelerated contact with the real world, for many through a “latch-key” childhood, has made you resourceful and hardworking. You meet your commitments and take employability seriously.
• Your distrust of institutions grew as you witnessed the lay-offs of the ’80s and has prompted you to value self-reliance.
• You have developed strong survival skills and the ability to handle whatever comes your way with resilience. X’ers instinctively maintain a well-nurtured portfolio of options and networks.
• A sense of alienation from your immediate surroundings as teens, coupled with rapidly expanding technology, has allowed you to look outward in ways no generation before could or did. You operate comfortably in a global and digital world. Many of you are avid adopters of the collaborative technology that promises to re-shape how we work and live.
• Your awareness of global issues was shaped in your youth, and you are richly multicultural. You bring a more unconscious acceptance of diversity than any preceding generation. Your formative years followed the civil rights advances of the 1960s. High divorce rates during your youth meant you are the first generation to grow up with women in independent authority roles. You welcome the contributions of diverse individuals.
• Your preference for “alternative” and early experience in making your own way left you inclined to innovate. You tend to look for a different way forward. Your strongest arena of financial success as a generation has been your entrepreneurial achievements.
• Your skepticism and ability to isolate practical truths have resulted in rich humor and incisive perspective. You help us all redefine issues and question reality.
• Your childhood made you fiercely dedicated to being good parents, prompting you to raise important questions about the way we all balance work with commitments beyond the corporation.
• Your pragmatism has given you practical and value-oriented sensibilities that, I believe, will help you serve as effective stewards of both today’s organizations and tomorrow’s world.
The most difficult elements of your past may well be those that provide you with the strongest capabilities for today.”
August 6th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
[...] social cache: we deal in uncommon cents. » Blog Archive » Tamara … [...]