Leading Older Employees

As Millenials take on increased responsibility at the office, they need to build management skills that allow them to work effectively with senior colleagues

by Jodi Glickman
Posted on Harvard Business Review: April 5, 2011 8:03 AM

The litany of leaders who’ve founded and built their companies in their twenties and thirties is long and storied. It’s hard to read much of anything in the news these days without Mark Zuckerberg, Biz Stone, or Andrew Mason weighing in. But more and more today, even the average young professional, the Millenial, is taking on increased responsibility at work, and managing and leading others far older than themselves.

Being a leader is tough enough when you look and sound the part, when you’ve got the war stories to prove you’ve toiled in the trenches and earned your way to the top. But leading without that authority, managing employees ten and twenty years older than you, receiving a mandate from the top but lacking the backing of the troops in the middle and at the bottom of the organization—that is a real challenge.
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Five ways to Hold the Right kind of Attention

To accomplish anything, chances are you need the help of others. Here’s how to engage and motivate them

By John Hagel and John Seely Brown

Posted on Harvard Business Review: April 5, 2011 8:26 AM
No matter how talented or accomplished you are, you cannot always count on attracting and retaining the attention of others. Too many options compete for everyone’s attention, and they multiply with each passing day. It will be more and more challenging to rise above the noise and hold onto the attention of those who matter to you.

Attention provides leverage. The more people we can attract and motivate to join us on a challenging quest or initiative, the more impact we are likely to achieve. So, what are effective ways to attract and retain the kind of attention that helps us to address the challenges we face? Here are five steps that build on each other.
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