Think and a Drink - Leadership

I Last night, I attended a workshop about common leadership traits.  This is not something I would normally attend, but I do have a dear friend who loves all things related to leadership development and training and agreed to check it out with her.  Met some really interesting people and actually found myself wondering if there really is something to this whole leadership development thing and how it really plays out in the work force.

The workshop presenter, Dr J, identified a variety of traits that go into making a good leader, and then bundled them into 4 key areas: Results, Visionary, Relationship, and Centered.

We talked a bit about what each pie in the chart means, and how they may conflict with each other--for example, a leader might be so results driven that his relationships with his team suffer and consequently may actually impede achieving results.  Or a leader may be so focused on creating a vision and putting so many hours into work that he suffers a heart attack because he isn't heeding his internal cues on stress management or limitations.

The presenter then pointed out each corner of the room had a sign corresponding to these 4 key areas and asked attendees (a group of about 50 young-ish professionals) to get up and go stand by the area they believed was the most important.  Unsurprisingly, I went to the Results category and stood with a few men (by far the least popular piece of the pie and definitely not the choice of any other women).  The majority of the group went to Relationships, and the rest were fairly evenly split between Visionary and Centered.

Next, we were asked to choose which one we felt was our best strength.  Most of the people in my group stayed put (myself included), while 95% of the room moved to the Relationships category, if they weren't already there.

Lastly, we were asked to choose the one we felt we needed to work on the most.  I finally left and went to the Visionary part of the room.  Most of the participants were in the Results and Centered category.

Here is what I found myself wondering: does the Millenial generation care more about leadership catering to them? Does leadership need to learn how to manage differently to keep millenials happy and productive? What would the baby boom generation think of this leadership wheel? 

I don't have an answer really other than a vague assumption that my parent's generation doesn't want to work for a jerk, but they know they are there to get a job done. My generation needs work to fulfill us, and the employer is lucky to get the work product from us in return. Too harsh? You can definitely see why the leadership wheel thing becomes increasingly important with the Mellenial generation taking over.