Flexible leadership in a multigenerational workforce

Abstract

Four generations are working together in the workforce and leadership has become an integral part of organizational success as organizations face challenges of a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment (VUCA). This action research study discusses the importance of focusing on employee needs by promoting a flexible leadership approach. Organizations face a need to train leaders on how to take on a flexible leadership approach within a multigenerational workforce. The study presents findings based on two cycles of research involving 10 participants who are professionals with various levels of experience working in different industries. Cycle 1 involved semi-structured interviews with employees from different generational cohorts to understand their needs and wants to feel engaged in the workplace. Cycle 2 was guided by the findings of Cycle 1 and involved action step activities including 3-part training modules, pre- and post-training questionnaires, a leadership development plan and interviews with leaders from different industries and levels of experience to assess how leaders can adopt a flexible leadership approach. The results highlighted that flexible leadership is trainable, an individualized approach overrides generational differences and time and resource investment by organizations is key in achieving flexible leadership among leaders. --Author's abstract