Currently, in companies across various sectors, it is increasingly common to have teams composed of members of different ages, which can have its advantages and disadvantages. However, sometimes this age difference can cause distance between people, and it is up to leadership to address this issue, which usually begins when the leader himself cannot handle all generations.
It is understandable that a leader of a certain age has more 'affinity' with people close to their age group, but this cannot become a reason for discrimination. For example, if I am an older leader, will I only consider what the older employees say and ignore the younger ones? The same applies to younger leaders, who do not listen to older employees.
We know that being a good leader is not an easy task and does not happen overnight; it is part of a process and can be time-consuming. The manager placed in this position needs to be prepared for it and willing to improve every day, making adjustments to their attitude to develop an appropriate conduct for the role they hold. And often, it is necessary to abandon behaviors that no longer make sense.
After all, a good leader requires some essential skills that are developed over time, such as active listening, being fair and impartial in day-to-day decisions, learning to delegate tasks and knowing how to make employees feel that they have a safe space in the workplace, where they can share ideas, express doubts and even make constructive criticism.
The fact is that acting this way is already a great challenge for many, which increases as the company has people of various age groups on the team. And why could this be a challenge? When we have people of different ages, we need to adapt our way of communicating and interacting so that each group can understand the message being conveyed correctly.
I see many negative comments about Generation Z, for example, that they are people aged 14 to 28. But are they really the 'terror of managers,' as they are being classified in various articles I've read, or are the leaders the ones who don't know how to handle them? Because once we have people from other generations working alongside us, it is essential to provide proper guidance.
In this sense, I believe that OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – can help leaders to be good for all generations, because if we are seeking to achieve results through ambitious goals, the age of the person speaking does not matter, as long as hypotheses and data are raised, so that it can later be identified which of them were true and validated and which were not.
In this way, the tool stimulates teamwork and also encourages each employee to perform their role in the best possible way, which makes it easier for people of different age groups to work together to deliver better results, forming a more powerful multigenerational team.
