Generational leadership

What is generational leadership?

Interest in generational leadership has likely never been greater than it is today. There is a surge of new books, reports, and articles on the topic, as well as an abundance of courses, conferences, webinars, and seminars. There are several reasons for this trend.

First, collaboration and communication challenges naturally arise in every workplace. Generational leadership theory suggests that these difficulties can be attributed to differing values and approaches to work among generations.

Second, many organizations struggle to attract and retain talented employees. Demographics are shifting—larger generations are gradually leaving the workforce while smaller generations enter. This creates a workforce challenge with increased pressure to attract and engage a more diverse group of employees, spanning younger, middle-aged, and older individuals.

Workplaces must therefore accommodate a wide range of needs, priorities, and expectations simultaneously. Generational leadership theory argues that leaders should adapt their style and organizational practices according to the supposed values, attitudes, and characteristics of each generation.

However, there are numerous problems with generational leadership that have led LEAD to refrain from offering traditional generational leadership consulting or services—instead providing alternatives we believe are better supported by evidence.

The problems with generational leadership

When the underlying assumptions are flawed, the conclusions will rarely be correct—and so it is with generational leadership.

Leading international research heavily criticizes the concept of generational leadership as unreliable, unsubstantiated, and problematic. This is due to several factors:

Differences between generations are often based on broad generalizations for which it is nearly impossible to find robust scientific evidence.
Stereotypes about generations (such as “Generation Z is spoiled” or “boomers resist change”) risk creating artificial divisions between people—and may actually harm collaboration rather than strengthen it.
These sweeping generalizations activate in-group/out-group thinking that reinforces bias between generations.
There is little consensus on who the generations actually are or what defines them—making it difficult to say anything meaningful or testable about them in practice.
Much advice on generational leadership is based on methodologically problematic studies—making such advice unwise to recommend or follow.

The issues with generational leadership led over 100 leading researchers to sign an open letter a few years ago urging leaders, consultants, and employees to stop using generational concepts. At LEAD we support this call—and instead offer scientifically grounded alternatives found throughout management research and literature.

LEAD’s alternative to generational leadership

Instead of managing generations, LEAD recommends two alternatives:

The first is managing life stages rather than generations. Generational theory presents an overly simplistic view that people’s workplace preferences are static—shaped solely by birth year and formative events. The logic becomes: “If you belong to this generation, you’ll always feel this way at work.”

Life stage theory recognizes real complexity and offers a more nuanced approach to understanding workplace preferences. This perspective highlights that preferences at work are dynamic—not static—and influenced by much more than an employee’s birth year.

Preferences may be shaped by life phase (young, middle-aged, older), significant life events, or societal trends—even those occurring after formative.

In other words: the life stage perspective sees preferences as changeable—shaped by both internal and external factors—rather than fixed by birth year alone.

The second alternative is for leaders to move beyond managing generations—but still recognize that many employees believe generational differences exist. Instead of leading based on stereotypical portraits of generations, leaders should address perceptions of generational differences.

This opens up dialogue about biases and stereotypes—raising awareness about how such beliefs might affect collaboration.

How we can help you

Inspirational presentations & workshops

Presentations and workshops that critically examine the concept of generational leadership—and offer what we see as better alternatives.

Organizational development

Development initiatives focused on life stage policies and HR strategies that embrace diverse employee preferences.

Research-based management consulting

Concrete, research-based advice supporting leaders with challenges that generation theory claims to answer—such as handling collaboration issues or attracting/retaining talent.

Contact us for more information about what we can do for your organization

Are you facing organizational change? Do you need strategic advice or a cultural development program?

Contact us so we can tailor together a program that develops precisely those competencies and structures needed to strengthen and future-proof your organization.

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen

Managing Director & Partner

Master of Law

Mobile: +45 22 42 18 11
Email: aba@lead.eu