Influence

 the shape of leadership

Millennials Who Manage in a Multi-Generational Workforce

Review of "Millennials Who Manage" by Chip Espinoza and Joel Schwarzbart

Billy Hartman on July 19, 2016

At last! Finally a book that engages in a conversation about realities millennials are experiencing in their current leadership roles now instead of elusive predictions about the future.

Take a glance through any young leader’s bookshelf, digital library, or podcast subscription list and you’ll likely be met by a who’s who of leadership and management thinkers - understandable given the sheer breadth of resources currently available. Yet while many leadership experts have paved the way with their contributions, not to mention the myriad other sociological and anthropological offerings specifically on the millennial generation, Chip Espinoza and Joel Schwarzbart’s recent collaboration hits a niche that surprisingly has little well-founded works available. Their book, Millennials Who Manage: How to Overcome Workplace Perceptions and Become a Great Leader, is a not-a-day-too-soon guide to help millennial leaders (like me!) enter their journey into leadership and management positions in the context of a multi-generational workforce – a workforce whose inter-generational understanding has been significantly clouded by mass media.

Foundational to the authors’ approach to the topic at hand is their guiding principle that “perception is not necessarily reality – but perception can create reality.” Thus, the authors have invested significant time defining the true makeup of current organizational thought, and resultantly, what leadership and management contexts millennial leaders are heading into. Espinoza and Schwarzbart’s subject knowledge expertise is evident as they unpack nearly a decade of inductive and deductive findings to help the reader understand what generations in the workplace really think, as opposed to what we think they think.

“Perception is not necessarily reality – but perception can create reality.” 

The book is a swift, enlightening read that follows a general arc focusing first on who the millennial is, then on who the other generations in the workforce are. With that groundwork in place, the remaining, most significant portion of the book delves into the dynamics of today’s workplaces and organizational environments and the ways millennials can effectively lead and manage the diverse people in them. Throughout, the leadership insights and takeaways are refreshingly offered through the lens of “how to be” instead of a mere collection of “how tos.”

Given the backgrounds of the authors, Millennials Who Manage is written in a manner digestible and beneficial for anyone in the public, private or non-profit sectors. And while the title portrays its targeted audience as millennials, leaders across other generational groups would be keen to add this to their library as they think about leadership succession and long-term sustainability.

How is this book valuable to church leaders?

For the faith based community, specifically current leaders in the baby boomer and Gen-X generations, much has already been written here about why engaging and leading millennials should be a foremost priority. This book adds significant value to the inverse of this dynamic by providing a guide for how millennials can reciprocate the engagement with older generations and thrive in their current (and future) assignments.

Practically speaking, this book should be elevated to must-read status for any young leader who is or will soon be leading teams or organizations comprised of people who are older than them. Further, any staff or leadership team would be well served to read this together to help ensure they’re actively creating a culture where transfer of leadership can be accomplished in a healthy and effective manner.

Book reviewed: Chip Espinoza and Joel Schwarzbart, Milliennials Who Manage: How To Overcome Workplace Perceptions And Become A Great Leader (Old Tappan, NJ: Pearson, 2016).

For more on this topic, see "Leading and Managing Millennials" and "Influence Podcast: Integrating Millennials Into the Workplace."

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