THE CHALLENGES OF ADAPTING LEADERSHIP THEORY AND

PRACTICE FOR THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION

Janis Balda1,2, PhD

Fernando Mora1, PhD
Joanna Stanberry2, MA
Rebecca Zinn2, MBA

1
Centre for Advancing International Management (AIM Centre)
St. George’s University
St. George’s, Grenada, West Indies

2
Max De Pree Center for Leadership, Pasadena-California, USA

Corresponding author: Dr. Janis Balda, St. George’s University, P.O. Box 7, St. George’s,
Grenada, West Indies. Email: jbalda@sgu.edu
ABSTRACT
Current research offers a complex perspective on the main characteristics of Millennials as
knowledge workers, specifically in how they relate to leadership. Servant-leadership
provides a context from which to examine the construction of workplace practice (action)
and purpose (meaning) among members of the Millennial generation. These two key
factors, along with relational inclination, self-motivation, followership and mentoring can
be seen as salient features in the current understanding of leadership for this generation.
However, theories developed for previous generations are not automatically applicable and
require critical examination and adaptation if they are to offer an understanding of
Millennials and their connection to more broadly defined goals and aspirations. Further
theoretical work is needed to provide models that accurately reflect the nature of
leadership for a generation in which knowledge is acquired, shared and created based upon
the growing relationships and connections that information technology provides.

Key words: Millennials, Digital Natives, servant leadership, relational leadership, multi-
generational team management, knowledge work, and knowledge management
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1. Background on Millennials

A generation can be defined as a country’s subculture that reflects the prevalent values of

a historical period, determined by significant cultural, political and economic developments (Egri

& Ralston, 2004). The members of a generational subculture rely on a set of shared beliefs,

values, attitudes and logical processes which provide the framework used by people within the

group to think, act, reason, process information, socialize, work, organize and lead (Egri &

Ralston, 2004). Generational identity, described in terms of the subculture’s values, beliefs,

understandings, perceptions, orientations and behaviors, becomes very important as its members

gain access to leading positions in society.

The concept of generations becomes useful when conceptualizing the transformational

processes in values, practices, behavior, management challenges, learning styles, social

networking and information processing abilities that are determined by demographic

characteristics. In generational theory, a particular generational cohort subculture develops in

response to societal changes occurring during a generation’s pre-adult years. Four categories of

values can be observed as a way of evaluating the characteristics of a particular cohort (Egri &

Ralston, 2004): openness to change (self-direction, stimulation), conservation (conformity,

security, tradition), self-enhancement (achievement, hedonism, power), and self-transcendence

(benevolence, universalism). Thus, each generation under consideration may show a particular

combination of these categories of values, thereby determining the subculture’s ethos.

In this regard, Howe & Strauss (2000) coined the term Millennials to refer to a particular

generational cohort in the USA born between 1980-1999, which according to them possesses a

number of attributes that define a distinct “peer-personality” or subculture. In a previous work by

the same authors (Strauss & Howe, 1991), three other generational cohorts were proposed: Silent
2
(1925-1945), Baby-Boomer (1946-1964) and Generation X (1965-1979). According to this

generational construct, the key to understanding the peer-personality of each generation is to

look at the socio-economic developments occurring in each cohort while growing up. Most of

the emerging literature about Millennial learning and their incorporation in the workplace and

into politics accepts the generalized idea that they were brought up as a very special group,

receiving enormous care and attention from their parents, making them very self-confident,

empowered and optimistic to undertake major personal projects (Cole, Smith & Lucas, 2002).

They were trained at school to participate in groups and teams, and for the most part grew up

immersed in technology without authority figures controlling their access to information

(Espinoza, Ukleja & Rusch, 2010). In general, it is accepted that this cohort reached adulthood

around the year 2000, which means that they are in the workforce right now, or finishing

graduate school and headed toward business, academia, the health professions, or leadership

positions in other fields.

Myers and Sadaghiani (2010) have made a thorough review of Millennials in the

workplace, in terms of socialization and membership negotiation, communications, expectations,

relationships, attitudes toward advanced technology, handling adversity, achievement orientation

and leadership aspirations. Others have found that Millennials demonstrate higher levels of self-

esteem and confidence in their abilities and therefore are less prone to depression (Twenge,

2007). Yet, Myers and Sadaghiani consider how disruptive millennial values can be within

organizations, how much organizational structures have to be modified to cope with them but

also how Millennial attributes can be adopted to bring renewal to organizations.

In their review, Myers and Sadaghiani (2010) point to the widespread idea that building a

career is not the principal motivator for most Millennials; they prefer flexible jobs, work-life
3
balance, and spending time developing close personal relationships. Instead of regarding these

attitudes as selfish and lazy, there is evidence that these attitudes may act as a catalyst in

organizations to change the established “workaholic” discourse and influence more humane

workplace environments. It also appears that Millennials expect free flowing and bi-directional

communications at all levels regardless of their position, showing that they are not intimidated

by seniority, age or status. Although it seems that Millennials are suspicious of organizational

structures and are less inclined to develop loyalty to organizations, Myers and Sadaghiani (2010)

show, using published research and other literature, that they strongly value meaningful

relationships with peers and supervisors, suggesting that open communications might be a way

of providing job stability for millennial workers. All of these cohort characteristics point toward

a new way of looking at sociability, work relationships organizational structures and flow of

information and knowledge, which affect the way leadership might be conceptualized.

Barzilai-Nahon and Mason (2010) tested behaviors and values with a target group of

executives in technology-based companies through qualitative methods and online surveys. They

summarize their results in terms of a set of salient behaviors and values which included

multitasking work style, experiential learning, collaborative attitude, motivation obtained from

reinforcement, authority figures earning trust and respect, preference for decentralized, non-

hierarchical structures, and democratic and inclusive access to information. They illustrate a

growing awareness of the organizational tensions that Millennials can cause, especially as they

interact within organizations that were designed with an entirely different world view and which

typically resort to top-down approaches to enforce their policies. In order to address these

problems, they propose a more holistic approach that takes into account technology, values and

behavior in self-regulating and self-reinforcing communities established within organizations.

4
This encompasses Millennials’ preference for, and comfort with teamwork and groups, reported

by others (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010).

2. Effects of Technology

A constant in any study relating to Millennials is the significance of growing up using

technology daily, and in particular the Internet. In a follow up question to Pew Research on

Millennials in the United States (January, 2010), about what makes a generation unique,

Millennials pointed to technology use as their distinctive characteristic. This characteristic can be

ascribed to young people born after 1980 almost anywhere in the world, and impacts how

technology savvy, focused on real-time, collaborative and unpredictable global Millennials can

be (Accenture, 2010). Therefore, it is important to understand the implications of this technology

emphasis on organizations and leadership.

Marc Prensky (2001a) introduced the term Digital Native to refer to the kind of student

that was found in the educational system at the time. In this work and in others by the same

author, he speculated that this generation has a different way of thinking and processing

information than previous ones (Prensky, 2001b). By using the term native, Prensky was

referring to the fact that these students have been raised fluently speaking the language of

computers, video games, information management and sharing, networks and the Internet. A

number of other influential papers and books published about this time spawned a growing body

of literature on the subject. As a result, other labels are used to describe this group, among them

screenagers, Net Generation (NetGen), and google generation.

Another reality reflecting the experience of Millennials/Digital Natives growing up in an

age of exploding computing power is the social networking and participatory culture of the web

5
that has emerged from being just a trend to becoming an everyday commodity. These changes

have influenced every culture in our globalized world, but have had the most pervasive effect on

the way younger generations view the world and how they construct their identities. In this

regard, Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) describe, as Prensky had done before (2001a, 2004), the

experiential, visual, social, connective, time compressed logic, multitasking, engaging, and

technological nature of this age group as compared to previous generations.

Several authors affirm that Millennials are literally “wired differently” than individuals

from previous generations (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010). Tapscott (2008) demonstrates how

technology impacts the millennial generation, estimating that digital natives will have logged

30,000 hours on the internet or playing video games by the time they are in their twenties. This

over exposure to technology has a direct effect in the way they obtain, process, and share

information, and it is fundamentally different from generations before them. As a result,

Millennials appear to be better at multitasking, responding to visual stimulation, filtering out

distractions and accessing relevant information in the web at a lightning pace (Tapscott, 2008).

Nevertheless, research demonstrating how a person’s neural circuitry changes with the

acquisition of advanced technological skills, and how this interacts with overall life performance,

is only beginning. The results thus far are not as encouraging as Tapscott, Prensky and others

may have hoped (PBS, 2010).

This stereotyping of Millennials/Digital Natives/NetGen as computer savvy and with

special or different learning and working abilities has also been questioned by a number of

researchers who criticize that these assertions are based mostly on anecdotic or common sense

evidence and have been accepted rather uncritically by others (Bennet, Maton & Kervin, 2008;

Cabra & Marciales, 2009.) According to these authors what has been created is some sort of
6
“moral panic” about the rise of a new generation that is surpassing the others and which for the

most part is still enigmatic. Nevertheless, emerging research reflects the critical connection

between Millennials’ approach to knowledge acquisition and trends in learning, information

seeking and innovation that must be taken into consideration by corporations, universities, non-

profit and service organizations (CIBER, 2008).

3. Millennials as Knowledge Workers

Peter Drucker (1999) was the first person to propose the concept of knowledge work and

introduced the idea in the 1950’s. A decade later he predicted that making knowledge work

productive was going to be the greatest management task of the 21st century. He compared this

endeavor to making manual work productive in the traditional industries that had been the basis

for economic growth up to that point. Drucker coined the term “knowledge worker” in the mid-

twentieth century, establishing a framework for understanding worker productivity and

motivation that remains relevant well into the digital age. Rather than productivity centered on

the efficient completion of a set of mechanized processes designed to transform inputs into a

sellable final product, workers contribute value through innovation, effective use of information,

and personal creativity.

In the preface to his book, Managing Knowledge Workers, Frances Horibe defines

knowledge workers as people who “add value through their ideas, their analyses, their judgment,

their syntheses, and their designs” (1999, p. xi). The rise of technology, expansive digital

connectivity, and proliferation of internet-based information sources highlight Drucker’s

predictions regarding the modern worker.

7
 Knowledge work involves acquiring, arranging and expressing information-as-knowledge

(Allen & Long, 2009). Traditionally knowledge work was more related with explicit knowledge

acquisition, which led to the so-called “know how”, and the development of individual skills. In

this case knowledge was seen as an object, which could be discerned, externalized, extracted and

transmitted. But knowledge-based or knowledge-intensive organizations focus more on tacit

knowledge which surfaces through interaction, collaboration and continual innovation (Norris et

al., 2003). In this case, knowledge is perceived as on-going conversation, emerging from the

communication between people (Allen & Long, 2009) and part of a social process that involves

creating, sharing, navigating, reflecting, testing, managing, and modifying distributed and

collective knowledge. It represents a shift of generating knowledge within a certain context and

in creating the relationships and connections through which knowledge flows. Therefore,

knowledge workers must be self-motivated, flexible, relational, willing to share responsibility,

and creative. The Millennial generation, molded by a “connected” world, embodies many of

these characteristics.

One of the problems in correctly understanding the younger generations has to do with

interpreting the meaning of these behaviors and specifically the role we assign to information

and communication technologies, since their advances strongly modify values, identity, and

behavior and do so at a speed that has not been witnessed before in our society. In this sense, it is

safe to assert that Millennials are a different kind of knowledge worker than the one originally

conceived of by Drucker when he coined the term. That is, they see knowledge acquisition,

transfer, and management in an entirely different light due to their technological background.

Millennials, through intensive use of technology, have come to understand knowledge as

a process that involves: learning, seen as personal knowledge acquisition; participation, or

8
interactive knowledge transfer; and, creation, as collaborative knowledge building. These aspects

have been influenced heavily by the way knowledge is constructed, represented, searched,

accessed, explored, collected, interacted with, exchanged, communicated, and co-created.

Palfrey and Gasser (2008) frame the way that Millennials interact with knowledge as a

three-stage process composed of grazing, deep diving and a feedback loop. Grazing refers to

researching the vast amounts of information available through the Internet, databases or their

social network. Deep diving involves going beyond titles, headlines, tags and moving to a

hypertext link, downloading a PDF file, video or podcast and other secondary action. The

feedback loop allows personal engagement with knowledge, active participation, knowledge

transfer through social networks, and co-creation of knowledge.

The process described above is a very sophisticated way of interacting with data and

other information in that one’s outputs in the form of reflections, conclusions or data are inputs

to another’s knowledge work (Allen & Long, 2009). This continuous flow in which Millennials

are permanently involved (which can also be considered “looping”), has prepared them for

knowledge work, as presently understood. As Siemens (2006) expresses it, “know where” and

“know who” are more important today than knowing what and how. Network creation becomes

essential in order to cope with fast information changes, increase knowledge flow and stay

current. Knowledge networking changes the nature of work, the characteristics of the work force,

organizational structure and the definition of management as well.

The egalitarian and flat access to knowledge acquisition, transfer and co-creation of the

networked environment in which Millennials have grown up enables young people to quickly

connect with other people that are willing to address serious issues, thus creating a new kind of

9
networked agency. As Palfrey and Gasser (2008) describe it, participation is not necessarily

different, just more connected, with new tools that make activism less anonymous, sharing of

information faster and organizations more effective in the real world. In spite of this, they have

been labeled in the USA as Generation Q for being too quiet and for restricting themselves

mostly to on-line activity (Friedman, 2007). However, there are repeated examples of

Millennials as knowledge workers embracing the specific task of transferring their knowledge to

practical projects for the common good. One of these, James Eberhard (32 years old), through his

organization, mGive raised more than $40 million ($5 million in two days) for Haiti’s earthquake

recovery efforts via a text campaign (Eberhard, 2010). Similarly, Paul Jones (22 years old), a

third year McMaster University medical student, who has taken two tours with medical brigades

in Honduras, has developed what is called a crowdmap providing a visual situational map of

Honduras hospitals and the rise of dengue outbreak using Usahidi, an open-source software tool

for crisis response developed also by young engineers and scientists (Usahidi, 2010.)

Millennials have a greater willingness to serve in terms of volunteering, and actually

participate more in internships, volunteering, service learning, and related activities than

previous generations (Pew, 2010). As such, Millennials emphasize "doing good" in everything

they do, even for example, putting their professional skills to use when they volunteer (Youth

Service America, 2010). Between 2007 and 2008, the number of volunteers in the U.S. increased

2% while the number of volunteers aged 16–24, comprised mainly of Millennials, increased by

5.7% (Koch, 2009).

4. Millennials as Servant Leaders

This leads us to the question of what it is required to lead knowledge workers,

particularly those within the millennial generation. Perhaps, once more something can be gleaned
10
from Drucker:

Making knowledge workers productive requires changes in attitude, not only on the part

of the individual knowledge worker, but on the part of the whole organization (Drucker,

1999, p. 159).

The above description of the Millennial knowledge worker poses the issue of

conceptualizing leadership theory such that it responds to the attributes, motivations, learning

styles, communication preferences, relational commitments and technological interests of

Millennials. As noted above, Millennials have been socialized in a knowledge-networking

environment that encompasses their personal, individual demands, but also their participation

and interaction, as well as their creative collaboration. It is a very complex world in which very

little has been explored regarding the characteristics of leadership required of those who engage

with Millennials. The emerging knowledge workers are network-centric, collaborative, bi-

directional, and collective, all of which demands a kind of leadership the world has not quite

experienced or required before.

McGonagil and Pruyn (2010) contend that leadership will require new networking skills,

including relationship building, creation of dialogue and action spaces, and cultural awareness,

as well as participatory and collaborative forms of leadership. This paper looks at leadership

theory in an attempt to wrestle with this dynamic, recognizing that each theory will, by necessity,

be re-designed, with the swiftly moving interactions of generations in organizations, by the

values and beliefs of the individual and the communities to which they belong and by the flow of

information and knowledge.

11
 A concept or theory is a set of assumptions, propositions, or accepted facts that attempts

to provide a rational explanation of causal relationships among a group of observed

phenomenon; they are mental models of the perceived reality (“Theory,” n.d.)1. Clearly the

relationship between leader and follower is one of the key factors in reflecting on leadership

theory and practice (Avolio, Walumba, & Weber, 2009). For example, the transactional or

exchange approach analyzes leadership based upon followers behaving in ways desired by their

leaders in exchange for goods. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, occurs “when one

or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to

higher levels of motivation and morality” (Burns, 1978, p. 20). It is a relationship built upon the

deeper needs and emotional desires of followers and leaders. Servant leadership fits within this

broader understanding of the relationship between leaders and followers, looking at follower

well being and its relationship to overall performance (Avolio, Walumba, & Weber, 2009).

Certain basic principles and practices emerging from the servant leader model serve to exemplify

the challenges of conceptualizing current leadership theory for the dynamics among Millennials

and other generations in the workplace.

Greenleaf (1982) offers the following well-known, operational definition of servant

leadership:

The servant-leader is servant first. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the

servant; first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The

best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while

being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to

                                                                                                               
1
Theory. (n.d.). In Business Dictionary. Retrieved on September 28, 2010 from
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/theory.html#ixzz0y7siI6wb.

12
 become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged person in society; will they

benefit, or at least, not be further deprived? (p. 14).

Observations that Millennials need hand-holding (i.e. attention), rapid advancement and

job flexibility offer the possibility that the underlying issue is one of powerful egos and selfish

ambition. It has been pointed out that it is very likely that Millennials will actively seek

leadership opportunities as well as rewards for leadership roles (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010).

These authors propose that parental messages about benefits of leadership, such as personal

achievement and success, might extrinsically influence Millennials in their desire to become

leaders, instead of a desire to serve, learn, grow and do good which act as intrinsic motivations

(Fry, 2003). Therefore, on its face the above understanding of the leader as servant seems far

removed from the conceptualization and practice of leadership among Millennials. However, this

observation would be much too simplistic and premature. In this regard, it has also been

suggested that Millennials demonstrate a complex relationship between the value of altruism in

leadership and their desire for personal rewards (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). Altruism in

leadership may be related to care, concern, appreciation and well being of self and others that

correlates well with the definition of Servant Leadership expressed above.

In examining Greenleaf’s definition it may seem that some of the difficulty is linguistic.

The word “servant” by itself creates a dilemma. For those working in a post-colonial, developing

world setting, and for feminists, the word connotes “servitude” and garners a reaction because it

is equated with forced or coerced activity. Similarly, for Millennials it conjures up its own

13
meanings2. Many Millennials might characteristically ask, “Servants to whom? Servants to

what? Why would I want to serve?”

Some argue that servant leadership encompasses a self-concept or sense of being as

“servant” or steward (De Pree, 1989; Senge, 1990) which incorporates the idea that she is

entrusted with the care of something bigger than self and for the good of others (see also Block,

1993). Graham (1991) would disagree, seeing servant leadership as putting others above the

organization and identifying this as one of the differences between transformational and servant

leadership. This demonstrates the care needed in formulating leadership theory for a new

generation of leaders and followers. It involves negotiating a complex set of dynamics for multi-

generational participants, adapting and designing new avenues of communication, not only

technologically, but also in terms of the meaning that these words and concepts are meant to

articulate. It also raises the underlying issue with the theory itself, which is how to truly examine

or measure it. It may require that we examine through new lenses the meaning of servant

leadership, putting the emphasis on two critical factors: purpose and action.

With a focus on meaning (or purpose) and action (or practice), rather than on “styles” of

leadership or the language used, or even what a leader “thinks” he or she believes, we may get

closer to examining the real meaning of servant leadership for the Millennial generation. This

line of thought opens the possibility that the underlying reasons for what some view as

“demands” by Millennials are instead responses to the desire to make a difference, to do

something meaningful with their lives, and not waste time and effort on useless causes (i.e. in

commuting or meetings). Perhaps the well-documented impatience found in Millennials is a

                                                                                                               
2
For some Servant is the name of an English alternative band, formed in London in 1998 that disbanded the year
after producing their fourth album in 2006 (ironically) entitled How To Destroy A Relationship. Their first
introduction to an American audience was in the film Sin City with the song "Cells".

14
symptom of their drive for tangible impact.

That Millennials are willing to volunteer their services and yet place high demands on

others and need to feel rewarded by recognition may sound like a contradiction. However,

Millennials, concerned with integrating all aspects of life, voice a need to be valued in whatever

they do, whether as volunteers or as paid workers. Their impatience, scrutiny, their seeming

impudence in requesting information and a voice, these behaviors are the Millennials way of

moving results forward, the mechanisms of their passion for change, for justice, and for impact.

There is concern that for some of the most educated and high achievers the socialization

of parents may drive them to levels of achievement, which limit their altruistic side.

Interestingly, Millennials life experiences as young people, particularly in their volunteerism,

may prevent this self-centered egotism from driving their future conduct as leaders (Sadaghiani

& Myers, 2009). This pressure to achieve, the manner in which it intersects with altruism and its

effects on leadership construction, requires further research. How this translates into the

workplace in terms of the leader/follower dynamic is only beginning to be examined.

By the same token, it may be much more important for examining leadership theory to

look at what Millennials do as much as what they say in order to conceptualize the exchange or

relationship. For example the documented importance on work-life balance may have as much of

an impact in organizations and teams in reducing competitiveness and self-advancement, as

would the self-identity concept of being a “servant” to the baby boomers whose work ethic has

driven their personal success.

Tapscott (2009) identifies collaboration in all areas, from jobs to information to life as

one of the main characteristics of Millennials. This requires open communication and constant

15
dialog, which are also traits of this generation. Millennials do not seem intimidated by

individuals who are more senior, either in age or in status. Popular literature suggests that as

children and teens they were encouraged to befriend parents and friends of their parents (Howe

& Strauss, 2007), became comfortable expressing their thoughts and opinions to adults, as well

as challenging adults, expecting credibility despite their age and inexperience (Tapscott, 1998).

The by-product of this is the rejection of hierarchies and command/control paradigms.

As a result of the major changes in communication and collaboration several issues arise

in the work place. Not only do Millennials expect constant communication with supervisors (yet

autonomy in carrying out their responsibilities), they want communication to be more of a

dialogue; and for it to be more open, positive, respectful and affirming than previous generations

expected (Hole, Zhong, & Schwartz, 2009; Gursoy et al., 2008; Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). The

sphere of interpersonal communication and how that is approached is perhaps one of the main

areas of difference between Millennials and others. For example, Millennials are unlikely to

accept an organizational policy that information is communicated on a ‘‘need-to-know basis’.

Regardless of their low-level positions, Millennial workers feel a need to be kept in the loop of

information (George, 2008). Some empirical research indicates that supervisors are surprised by

Millennials’ expectation that they freely share strategic information, while plans are still being

formulated in the higher levels of the organization. They are constant “negotiators and

questioners” (Eisner, 2005). If, as sometimes alleged, servant leadership does not work and

cannot flourish in a hierarchical organization but rather is the fruit of horizontal and participatory

exchanges, then it would appear to be a “fit” with the expectations of Millennials.

One of the most critical elements may be how Millennials conceive of and express

relationships. Brogan and Smith (2009), in their book Trust Agents describe how the Web, and
16
specifically social media, is changing the rules of engagement and networking. From a very

different vantage point, they argue, just as servant leadership does, the critical nature of human

relationship, and the critical factor of building trust: “In marketplaces where a simple sale is no

longer simple, building trust today, through establishing and cultivating relationships, is at the

core of the experience.” They advocate for online social networks as media, “not because they

help us communicate but because they extend human relationships” (p. 18). To them, web savvy

individuals are considered to be at the center of wise, powerful networks in part because:

they make building relationships a priority because it’s a human thing to do, long before any

actual business requires transacting. They are people who jump at the chance to meet others

online, at events, or in mixed social settings and who then often connect these new

acquaintances with other people in their personal networks. They realize the value of our

networks isn’t in their ability to ask for things, but in their ability to complete projects faster,

find resources more easily, and reach the right people at the right time (p. 30).

The importance of relationships to Millennials cannot be overstated. In a recent Pew

study (Quitney, Anderson, & Rainie, 2010) technology experts surveyed about Millennial social

habits agreed that the “disclosure of personal information online carries many social benefits as

people open up to others in order to build friendships, form and find communities, seek help, and

build their reputations” (p. 2). This leads to new definitions of “public and private” with

extraordinary implications for organizational life, but the inherent desire for building community

and a redefined value of socialization are things that servant leaders should clearly identify with.

Brogan and Smith assert that “communities” on the web don’t want to be managed but instead,

to be cared for (p. 20). They also observe:

17
 Learning how to work well with people, empower people, recognize their strengths and

weaknesses, and know when to improve relationships and when to step away are all part of

what a trust agent does. In business terms, these are often called soft skills. From our

perspective, companies that aren’t valuing the power of peak performers in the arena of

human interpersonal skills and social interaction are companies doomed to a painful future

(p. 30).

In what way does the focus of Millennials upon relationship align with their desire to find

meaning and/or fulfillment through organizational achievement? How does that fit within the

servant leader paradigm? When they feel individually they are meant to make a difference and

that their opinions should count, it is often perceived as invasive or a usurpation of authority but

perhaps their belief that they can transform the organization, if not the world, is predicated on

keeping the goal in mind, not necessarily on their ego fulfillment. It is possible that in this mental

mode, of both personally finding meaning and also serving the purpose or mission, they operate

out of the same modality as the “servant leader”, though perhaps without using that language.

The question that arises, however, is whether they represent the same basic set of values or

beliefs about human nature and the nature of relationships.

This seems to beg the question, what are we truly servant to? Is it to one another as seems

implied by Greenleaf’s statement? Or, is it rather to the mission or purpose to which we are

devoting ourselves? Drucker addressed the concept of servant-leaders in terms of the mission of

the organization and the connections between units. “Keep your eye on the task, not on yourself.

The task matters, and you are a servant” (Drucker, 1990, p. 127). What appears to be the link

between both Millennials and Boomers, in terms of the concept of servant leadership, is the

“who” or “what” that is served.

18
 If we consider the issue from the "follower" perspective and consider the Millennials

need to make a contribution and to find meaning in what they do, volunteer or paid, and to

exercise responsibility and personal autonomy, it appears that the current model of servant

leadership does not fit well. While some theorists evaluate servant leadership based upon

whether the followers demonstrate a higher commitment to the leader than non-servant led

followers, this analyzes the wrong measure - putting attention on the leader rather than on the

dynamic of the relationship and their shared commitment to who they are becoming as they

interact around the mission and/or contribute to a collective goal. In this new understanding, a

leader earns Millennials commitment and trust by serving the task, the organization, the

relationship and even the exchange, authentically.

Additionally, while the motivation of the servant leader is to serve and to do so in ways

that are beneficial and meant to be empowering, there is still a sense in which, as De Pree would

put it, the servant leader "controls rather than liberates". Even though it may be true in certain

situations that followers have a higher expectation for direction than the leader, there are

situations where the role of the leader can seem paternalistic, rather than liberating, especially to

a Millennial. Depending on the situation, the leader's attempt to serve the "interests" of others

may actually result in being prescriptive since the leader considers herself to be in the position to

determine what is the “good" to which the follower should be directed.

When Drucker says the manager is a servant he clearly articulates that the manager serves

the institution, and not its employees, customers or shareholders. This servanthood must

contribute to the institution’s performance. If the institution or organization does not perform, it

has no reason to exist. Of course, the manager can generate performance through good

leadership, ethical behaviors and affirming relationships with followers and subordinates, but the
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priorities must never be confused. (Drucker, 2004.) Greenleaf and De Pree both emphasize that

leaders have a significant role in holding the institution in trust, that all members of an

organization have a responsibility to care for its well-being and to serve the needs of those who

work alongside them. In one sense everyone in an organization serves. Support

functions serve the mission as well as serving the operations functions; operational

people serve the mission and the customer. Likewise, it is not the individual to whom we are

servants but the community, something the younger generation understands better. Because they

are networked, and their knowledge is relational and collective, they actually appear better able

to position their relationships as primary in terms of time, focus and knowledge sharing.

Emphasizing the role of the leader is not the aim of servant leadership; rather it is to do

the things that De Pree, Drucker, and Greenleaf argued for - to get results (organizational

performance) while also contributing to the higher good. Most followers do not want the focus to

be on them but on the work that they are about. To say that the focus in servant leadership theory

is on the individual, and unlike transformational leadership, not on the organization or the

accomplishment of the mission or goals of the organizations, is to significantly diminish the

scope of the endeavor to which the servant leader is committed. In the context of well-known

statement: "The measure of leadership is not the quality of the head, but the tone of the

body. The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers" Max De

Pree poses the question of how to measure leadership: "Are the followers reaching their

potential? Are they learning? Serving?" but it ends with: "Do they achieve the required results?

Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?"

5. Millennials and emerging organizational paradigms

We have so far shown that Millennial knowledge workers operate in a knowledge

20
intensive, highly relational and networked mode; that they emphasize work-life balance, the right

to participate, collaboration, creativity and contribution as well as rewards; and that they seek

opportunities for relational leadership positions. In the aim of proposing leadership models that

could serve this generation, we have also looked at how the servant leadership paradigm fits

within this scenario. The challenge is to determine the manner in which the follower-leader

relationship can flourish in new, less hierarchical, organizations that put an emphasis on people,

relationships, communication, and creativity and accommodates the growing numbers of

Millennials that are populating the workplace alongside other generations. This leads to

considering new practices, organizational designs, and actionable knowledge that enables all

sorts of multi-generational teams, groups and communities to produce results for the

organization and steward its mission.

A culture war wages over Millennials as the saviors of the future or its destroyer, and

threatens to obscure the path to discovering and developing the attitudes and practices needed.

Some seek to put new wine into old wineskins, to use a biblical metaphor, accepting certain

perspectives or traits of Millennials but attempting to squeeze them into classical team models or

top-down management hierarchies. It is doubtful that this strategy will produce the desired

organizational results. At the same time, devising work processes that encourage full

collaboration and creativity is not easy to do. Recognizing that organizational structures, modes

of personal engagement and work processes must change along with the workers that engage

with them is the first step. This action must be intentionally aligned with leadership behaviors,

and relational practices to be successful.

Drucker called management a “social technology” and the tools of the knowledge worker

include meetings, reports, and other forms of communication that can be wielded for good or for
21
harm in the organization. Established businesses have been slow to alter these tools in light of

Millennial values and traits, though many are beginning to see the value to their bottom line (and

business continuity). Technology companies, however, have tested new business models and

practices for just over a decade, from the start of Google and the first bubble. Millennials

founded some of these, like Facebook and Foursquare, and they continue to provide the most

desired jobs for that generation. The management innovations evident in these cultures can be a

foundation for building future practice.

Software development project management illustrates encouraging signs about emerging

paradigms for leadership and organizations. Classical project management has been based on

control mechanisms that strive for: accuracy, productivity, determinism, optimization, and top-

down execution. Software development implies the implementation of a step-by-step

methodology that is quite cumbersome to provide rapid changes or midcourse corrections

(Thomas, 2005), particularly in light of the fast growing and volatile Internet software design

industry as well as mobile communication applications (Abrahamsson et al., 2002). Therefore, in

recent years, new project management methodologies have been devised to cope with this

problem. Two of the most prominent ones, which also appeal to Millennials, are Agile and Open

Source software (OSS) development methods. Agile software processes, and the concept of

agility more broadly, denote the quality of being lightweight, fast, nimble and ready for motion.

Agile software development is an iterative, incremental methodology that traces its origins to the

1950s. It emphasizes a “lightweight” framework for delivering usable software and is based on

self-organizing, cross functional teams. The mainstream world that Millennials inhabit

increasingly reflect a similar environment, from Wikipedia to Facebook; therefore, it is not a

stretch to see how tools developed within this methodology might quickly find adoption in non-
22
software environments.

One of the most attractive characteristics of Agile methods is that it is people-oriented,

favoring relationships over processes and technology. Highsmith and Cockburn (2001) highlight

how Agile recognizes people as the primary drivers for project success, requiring

communication, collaboration, trust, goodwill and a focus on teamwork. In Agile software

development, conversation is the foundation for building relational trust among these

knowledge-intensive teams. In this kind of knowledge work, solving complex problems requires

access to people within a personalized network that facilitates conversation and idea sharing.

Instead of accumulating overwhelming information, the idea is to have access to trusted people

that understand the information. In other words, connecting people not collecting data would be

an appropriate motto (Stuckey and Arkell, 2006). Knowledge is thus relationally embedded in a

network of individuals engaging in a variety of social processes such as dialogue, modeling, role

playing, journaling, and other ways of knowledge representation (people that are co-located in

the case of Agile methods, and distributed for OSS). Leadership in this case is exercised by

fostering conversation as much as possible and in removing the impediments that might

otherwise hinder it (Thomas, 2005), or to use Brogan and Smith’s (2009) term, becoming trust

agents.

Originally, Agile methods were introduced to cope with the uncertainty generated by

frequent changes in product specifications during the development cycle. One of the most

popular Agile methods is called the Scrum approach (Abrahamsson et al., 2002; Rising and

Janoff, 2000) in which a small size team is the basic unit. The term comes from Rugby

terminology and refers to a strategy in which teams work as tight, integrated units with each

team member playing a well defined role and the whole team focusing on a single goal such as:
23
“getting an out-of play ball into the game” through teamwork. The center of interaction for team

members is the daily Scrum meeting, which focuses on moving results forward. In these

meetings participants come to the same location every work morning and stand up for 15

minutes. Anyone can attend but only those completing the functional work may speak,

answering three questions:

• What have you done since yesterday?

• What are you planning to do today?

• Do you have any problems preventing you from accomplishing your goal?

The goals of the Scrum meeting are basically to communicate priorities, keep everyone

informed of progress and obstacles, resolve problems, track progress, make everything visible to

everyone, improve communication, share successes, address and minimize risk, show

incremental advances, build trust, and collectively acquire and share knowledge (Abrahamsson

et al., 2002; Rising and Janoff, 2000). This example shows how the principles behind Agile

processes support the kind of diffused leadership necessary to enable effective teams for

Millennials. With the Scrum approach we can see how the concepts of knowledge creation and

sharing and servant leadership can be tied together to foster a working environment where

Millennials are highly productive through personalizing, participating, collaborating and co-

creating.

6. Conclusions

In this article we have reviewed the main characteristics of Millennials looking

specifically at how their particular traits inform their concerns about leadership and their

workplace aspirations, exploring six themes particularly:

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• The need to examine purpose and action in order to understand better the construction of

leadership in the Millennial generation and in particular, the complex interaction between the

desire to serve, and to better society and the expectation of rewards and personal recognition

in their contribution. This creates a number of difficulties in the straightforward application

of leadership theories such as servant leadership.

• The way that being web savvy affects Millennials’ understanding of social networking

provides clues about the relational nature of Millennial integration in the workplace, which

can be directly tied to the networked characteristics of knowledge acquisition, creation and

sharing. Focusing on the impact of such Millennial behaviors demonstrates that they can

result in improved and open delegation, less micro-management, and more team integration

and conflict resolution, much as would be exemplified by the traditional servant leader. It is

possible that they conceive of their role not as other-directed (as traditional servant

leadership theory would envision leadership), but that by voicing their needs and opinions as

well as offering dissent, they believe they best serve the organization, the higher aims of

“doing good” and themselves.

• From a follower perspective, the engaged Millennial may want a leader, using Drucker’s

words, who has his or her own results, someone whom they respect because she not only

influences the direction of the organization, or has formal power, but also because they

accomplish their own work. For example, in on-line start-ups, Millennial software engineers

who are newly hired want to know what the founder knows, what she is doing and that she

will listen and interact with them. The experience of Agile and OSS methodologies shows

that it is possible to see a leader/follower interaction and participation in a more horizontal,

organic and spontaneous way.

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• Max De Pree (1997) described the personal attributes of a leader as competence, character,

creativity, and accountability, and likewise portrayed the attributes of the leader in terms of

his or her relationship to those led. The leader is described as one who provides opportunities

for others to learn and grow, who offers the gift of challenging and meaningful work

matching the gifts of the person with the job, encourages people to decide what things of

significance need to be measured, and then helps them do the task, heals people with trust,

caring and forgetfulness, knows organizations are social environments and looks at the whole

of life. Such a description appears to fit the mental model of many Millennials although it is

too soon to identify any permanent or comprehensive pattern.

• The previous conclusions open up a number of different avenues of research regarding the

conceptualization of leadership by Millennials. As with Agile and OSS software

development where more egalitarian, and inclusive teams are assembled and managed, we

may find new expressions of leadership that could be classified under the umbrella of servant

leadership or perhaps transformational leadership. On the other hand, there are characteristics

exhibited that appear to be clear signs of transactional exchanges. It is also likely that

Millennials may end up proposing new constructs of leadership that are heavily influenced

by the close ties between knowledge and relationship fostered by technological advances.

Qualitative and quantitative studies of actual Millennial leaders need to be devised in order to

identify these emerging leadership constructs and perhaps be in a better position to propose

new theoretical approaches and definitions.

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Janis Balda has worked with business and nonprofit organizations for over 30 years as a project

director, legal advisor, board member, trainer and teacher. She is currently Professor of

Management, Centre for Advancing International Management and Executive Director,

Caribbean Management Research Initiative (CaMRI), at St. George’s University, Grenada, West

Indies. She is also a Principal at the De Pree Leadership Center, Pasadena, CA. and President of

the Drucker Society of the Caribbean, working on functional management as a means of

improving enterprise development and capacity building.

Fernando Mora, is Professor in Health Informatics, and Organizations and Technology at St.

George's University, Grenada, West Indies. He was formerly Professor of Biomedical

Engineering at Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela. He has published over 100

articles and papers in his field. He received his undergraduate degree in electronic engineering at

Universidad Simón Bolívar, the M.S. in biomedical engineering from California State

University-Sacramento, and the Doctorat en Sciences, Genie Biologique et Medical from the

Université Francois Rabelais in Tours, France. His current research interests are on web based

health management and leadership.

Joanna Stanberry, has conducted and presented original research in organizational social

psychology regarding NGOs in Bolivia and Brazil, focusing on leadership, community

development and participation of indigenous peoples. She has been awarded fellowships for

research in human rights conducted in Poland and the Czech Republic and has had pieces

published on leadership and management. She has 5 years experience consulting in strategy and

33
program development in the not-for profit sector. In May 2010 she completed an M.A. in

Organizational Leadership at Eastern University.

Becca Zinn, has worked extensively with the nonprofit sector and in entrepreneurial

organizations. She is currently the Executive Director of a religious organization working in

West Philly focused on community engagement. She has worked and traveled internationally,

leading teams engaging cross-culturally in relief and development activities. She received her

MBA from Fox School of Business at Temple University in May 2010.

34