The leadership challenge of the multi-generational workplace
In Australian workplaces, there are now five generations working side by side, increasingly presenting challenges for leadership. According to research from Deloitte, organisations know it, with 70% recognising that leading multigenerational workforces will matter to their success over the next 12 to 18 months. Only 10% feel ready for it.
Part of that readiness gap comes down to taking a single approach to leadership across every generation. Ways of working, communication preferences and feedback styles all vary across a team that spans five generations. A single approach to leadership won’t resonate with them all. This article looks at where that approach breaks down, what it costs and what leaders can do differently to successfully manage a multi-generational workplace.
People’s needs change at every stage of their career
Most leaders manage by generation because it’s the easiest label to reach for. But what actually determines what someone needs isn’t their generation. It’s their career stage.
Deb Travers-Wolf MIML, Founder of I LEAD Consulting and a Gen Xer, describes it as a seesaw rather than a fixed position: “I needed flexibility last year, today you get 150% of me. Last year I was learning AI, today I’m the master.”
Karen Luu GAICD FIML, Chief Operating Officer at Peninsula Grammar School and a Millennial, describes a similar shift over a longer arc: “Earlier in my career, I admired expertise. Today, I place greater value on judgement, character and stewardship. As organisations become more complex, leaders are increasingly called upon to make decisions that influence people, culture, performance and long-term outcomes.”
The assumptions people carry
Linda Fazldeen AM FAICD FIML, Director Wagering Reform, Department Tourism and Hospitality NTG, and a member of the Baby Boomer generation, questions one particular assumption.
“One of the most persistent misconceptions is that older workers resist change or struggle to innovate – a curious assumption given that our generation invented the Internet, and laid the foundations of the digital age,” she says. “There’s also a belief that we’re winding down, less interested in learning, or somehow disconnected from technology.”
Bias like this has a real cost, and it isn’t confined to older workers. Research from the Centre for Talent Innovation found that among employees who experience bias at work:
- 75% say they aren’t proud to work for their company
- 48% have looked for a new job in the past six months
- 1 in 3 have started withholding ideas rather than risk being dismissed for them
Hybrid work made the gap harder to ignore
While these differences aren’t new, hybrid work has made them harder to ignore.
When a team is split across the office, home and time zones, the people who are naturally more visible tend to get read as more committed. Equally good work happening elsewhere, with less visibility, can go unnoticed.
US research from Grammarly and The Harris Poll estimates poor workplace communication costs businesses $12,506 per employee every year. This can show up faster in multigenerational teams because there’s a wider spread of communication preferences in the room.
What’s being lost
“Older workers carry a depth of experience that can’t be fast-tracked,” Fazldeen says. “Over time, we develop a kind of professional intuition – the ability to read situations quickly, anticipate consequences and make balanced decisions without being thrown off course.”
“There’s the relationship capital built over years of collaboration – trust, credibility and networks that span sectors and communities. It’s a form of strategic currency that simply can’t be replicated overnight.”
A study by Griffith University’s Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, commissioned by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, found that transferring knowledge and learning from others in a low-risk environment was central to the retention strategies that worked best in Australian workplaces.
Succession planning is usually treated as a single event with one person replacing another when a role opens up. That’s too late for the kind of knowledge Fazldeen is describing. It has to be built in earlier, through structured mentoring that runs in both directions and real overlap between an outgoing leader and their successor, long enough for knowledge transfer, not just tasks and passwords.
What effective leaders do differently
The right question isn’t how to lead a Gen Z employee, or how to manage a Baby Boomer. It’s how to get the best out of the person in front of you, whichever generation they happen to belong to.
“The leaders who have influenced me most have consistently demonstrated that leadership is not measured by position or authority, but by the positive impact they have on others,” Luu says.
“Strong multi-generational workplaces are built on shared purpose and shared standards. Generational diversity becomes a powerful advantage when people are united by common values and a commitment to raising the standard, and ethical leadership plays a critical role in creating that environment.”
Martin Thomas FIML AFAIM MAITD, CEO of the Dental Assistants Professional Association and a Baby Boomer, points to where that starts.
“Different generations work well together when there is respect, curiosity and honest conversation. Older leaders must start that conversation with humility, rather than waiting for younger people to adjust.”
Three things separate leaders who get this right.
- They build around shared goals rather than generational labels, so age stops being the variable a team organises around.
- They actively check and reset communication norms across the team, e.g. a short team agreement on response times, meeting purpose and preferred channels
- They treat generational capability the same way they’d treat any other skill gap: worth diagnosing properly, not guessing at.
OECD research found that firms with a higher share of workers aged 50 and over are measurably more productive. This is not just because of what older employees contribute individually, but because of what happens when younger and older employees work together. An organisation with a 10% higher share of over-50s than average was found to be 1.1% more productive overall.
Where this leaves leaders
Multigenerational teams aren’t a phase to manage through. They’re the new baseline and as careers stretch longer, the mix will only widen.
“When people experience fairness, trust and respect, they engage more fully, learn from one another and contribute to something greater than themselves,” Luu says.
That’s not a generational outcome. It’s what happens when a team is led well, whoever’s on it.
IML’s leadership and management courses are built to help managers and leaders develop the kind of adaptive, people-first leadership required to manage a multigenerational workplace.
