Changing of the Guard— Boomers to Gen Xers
Let’s turn our attention to the next generation of leaders who will run our corporations, educational and religious institutions, the arts, sports and entertainment industries, and the government in the coming decades. The parade scene is definitely changing with the Boomers retiring at the rate of one every 8 seconds. The last of the Boomers will turn 65 by the year 2029. In addition, there are 11 percent fewer Gen Xers than Boomers, and Gen Xers are the next group in line to take the leadership helm. However, the Boomers have been slow and sometimes negligent in the development of this up-and-coming generation. There are definitely some organizations that are doing an excellent job of developing next-generation leaders with both formal and informal high-potential programs, so we are not making a blanket failure statement here, just pointing out a clear gap in our upcoming leadership capabilities.
There is some good news in all of this: there is still time in most organizations. With the Boomers drawing out the retirement process with plans that include phased retirement and contracting back to the company, we can start where we are and develop strong leaders for the inevitable changing of the guard in the generational parade.
More good news: as Gronbach points out in The Age Curve,1 the shortage of midlevel managers will avail unprecedented opportunity to minorities and immigrants to advance their careers. Latinos and African Americans will find that commonplace racial barriers to corporate advancement will no longer exist as they become a hot commodity for leadership advancement both due to the gap in available leaders and also due to our need and desire to create more diverse leadership teams across the nation. We can measure our success when every research report on leaders in America is no longer 70 percent white middle-aged male. We’ve had that for the past 200 years. It’s time to move on, America.
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