Leadership Styles and the Millennial Generation: Challenges and Fit

This essay explores various leadership styles and their applicability to the millennial generation, also known as Gen Y. It begins by defining leadership and highlighting its importance in achieving organizational goals. Different leadership styles, including autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, and paternalistic, are discussed, outlining their characteristics and impacts on employees. The essay then delves into the nature of millennials, emphasizing their tech-savviness and family-centric values. Challenges faced by leaders in managing millennials, such as the need for work-life balance and coaching rather than strict management, are examined. Finally, the essay argues that a laissez-faire leadership style, which provides autonomy and guidance, is most suitable for leveraging the talents and skills of the millennial workforce. Desklib offers this essay and other resources for students.

Marketing principles

Table of Contents
Main body........................................................................................................................................3
What is leadership ? ...................................................................................................................3
What are the different leadership styles?....................................................................................3
Nature of millennial generation..................................................................................................4
Challenges faced by leaders while dealing with millennial generation......................................5
Pick one leadership style and explain how it fits to millennial generation.................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

Main body
What is leadership
Leadership is one of the most important task that has to be done in an organisation. Leaders
make sure that the organisation is working according to their goals and objectives and will also
make sure that the employees of the company are working according to the needs and wants of
the company. It is important for the company to make sure that effective leaders are working for
the company(High., 2018.). Leaders will make sure that they are influencing the employees of
the company in a correct way and will be able to align the goals and objectives of the company
with the motive of employees so the they can work with optimum capacity and their motivation
level is also high which will help the company in increasing the productivity of employees.
Effective leaders are first and foremost requirement of an organisation in order to become
successful as the leaders will provide guidelines to the employees and if the leaders are not
providing appropriate guidelines then their will be a situation of miscommunication or
misunderstanding which is not good for the management of the company.
What are the different leadership styles?
Their are different styles of leadership which are followed by different leaders according to the
organisation and the management in which they are working. Leadership styles also depends
upon the personality of leaders and the way they persieve things. The different styles of
leadership are as follows:
 Autocratic: This style of leadership the leaders have the behaviour of “ Do as I say”.
They generally tend to give instructions to its employees and make sure that they are
working according to the instructions of the leader. They has a centralised decision
making process and will make sure that the authority and responsibility of work is in their
hands and are not in the hands of employees or staff (Ambituuni, Azizsafaei and Keegan.,
2021.). They did not listen or care about the opinion of their subordinates and that is the
reason why they generally tend to make a negative environment or impact on their staff
or followers.
 Democratic: This style of leadership follows a decentralised style of leadership and they
encourage the participation of their staff in the rules and policies formation of the
organisation. It is important for the leader to engage employees in the decision making

process of the company. This style of leadership always faces arguments such that some
people say that employees does not have the ability to take decisions and hence they must
not be given the authority while on the other hand people say that it is important for the
leaders to involve staff as it will help them in finding new and creative ways of
completing the task.
 Lazzies fair: In this style of leadership leaders do not interfere in the workings of the
employees and provide them authority to take decision regarding their work. The leader
does not provide any restriction and make sure that the employees are solving their
problems by themselves (James., 2020.). In this style of leadership leaders play a minor
role in the decision making process of the company and provide freedom to its employees
which can enhance the decision making of employees.
 Paternalistic leadership: The word paternalistic means “papa knows best”. The
relationship between leaders and employees is same as the relationship between the head
of the family and other member. The final decision will be made by the leader only. The
leader has the responsibility to provide better working conditions and environment to
their employees and make sure that other benefits are reaching to the employees.
Nature of millennial generation
Millennials are also known as Gen Y and are people who are born in between 1982 to 2000. this
generation is the fastest growing segment of the workforce. As this generation is full of talent it
is important for the companies to make sure that they are targeting this segment of workforce.
Their are certain characteristics which are formed mainly by the culture and the world in which
they have grew up.
 Tech savvy: The millennials are generally tech savvy and as they grew up with the
technology and are having the upgraded version of technology each and every day. It is
important for the company to understand that they can perform their jobs better. The
millennials kids are brought up using laptops and phones and are familiar with the
workings of the technology(Peoples and et. al., 2021.). Nowadays technology is an
important factor for companies and it is important for the staff to know how to use
technology.
 Family centric: Millennials are tend to give priority to family over work. Even if they do
not have children or spouse then also they tend to spend time with niece, nephew or

siblings. They like to have a proper work life balance which helps them in concentrating
more on their work. The millennials are people who are happy with low salaries but
requires time with family.
Challenges faced by leaders while dealing with millennial generation
 Millennials needs greater work life: The generation that comes under the category of
millennials need a work life balance first. The people are generally tend to work for lower
pay but they need greater sense of satisfaction from the work that they are doing. It is
important for the leaders to make sure that employees are having a proper work life
balance.
 Millennials needs a coach not manager: It is important for the leaders to make sure that
the millennials want to learn new things and want to have freedom of thinking and
working in their work(Robbie., 2021.). They don't want someone who can give them
instructions all the time and tell them what to do and what not to do. They only want
guidance and not instructions.
Pick one leadership style and explain how it fits to millennial generation
Laissez fair leadership style can be best suited for the organisation in case is they want to
retain millennials. It is important for the leaders to understand that millennials just need guidance
and not advice. It is important for the organisation to provide millennials freedom of work which
can help the organisation in taking full advantage of the talent and skills of the millennials.
Laissez fair leadership style will make sure that the employees are taking their decisions on their
own and are finding solution of the problems on their own.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ambituuni, A., Azizsafaei, F. and Keegan, A., 2021. HRM operational models and practices to
enable strategic agility in PBOs: Managing paradoxical tensions. Journal of Business
Research, 133, pp.170-182.
High, S., 2018. 7. Managing Decline. In One Job Town (pp. 177-195). University of Toronto
Press.
James, R., 2020. Managing NGOs with Spirit. In NGO Management (pp. 255-268). Routledge.
Peoples and et. al., 2021. Managing Cybersecurity Events Using Service-Level Agreements
(SLAs) by Profiling the People Who Attack. In Advances in Cybersecurity
Management (pp. 221-243). Springer, Cham.
Robbie, J., 2021. Managing foot care for people with diabetes. Practice Nursing, 32(Sup3),
pp.S3-S7.
(High., 2018.)(Ambituuni, Azizsafaei and Keegan., 2021.)(James., 2020.)(Peoples and et. al.,
2021.)(Robbie., 2021.)