Issues & Observations: Debunking Generational Differences

Michael T. Renn

Lately it seems that everyone has been labeled, categorized, or even stereotyped based simply on his or her date of birth. It has become commonplace to attribute closely held views, values, and behaviors to generational differences. People may, for example, belong to the Silent Generation, the Baby Boom generation, Generation X, or Generation Y. Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas wrote a book about the leaders they call Geeks (ages twenty-one to thirty-four) and Geezers (ages seventy to eighty-two).

Research has indicated certain generational attributes. In comparison to Baby Boomers, for example, Gen-Xers tend to place more importance on autonomy, independence, variety, excitement, and challenge; want to be promoted faster; and are less loyal and more self-focused. Baby Boomers are more likely to feel that work is one of the most important parts of a person's life.

Although the existence of generational differences in the practice of leading is often taken for granted, Jennifer J. Deal, an enterprise associate and researcher at CCL, in her book Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground (Jossey-Bass, 2007), describes these differences as “largely myth” and has ample survey data and statistical analysis to support her standpoint. But Deal's more powerful caution may be that at a time when many organizations are struggling with the negative effect of demographics on staffing, unwarranted attributions of generational differences are impediments to resolving real differences among individuals in organizations—differences that create dysfunction and rob organizations of employee energy and commitment.