Effect of transformational behavior on millennial job satisfaction

Leaders are responsible for empowering and driving employees to succeed in challenging times or changes and, ultimately, achieve the best results. One of the biggest dilemmas in today’s leaders’ agenda is to understand how to manage a diverse multigenerational workforce in which millennials represent a predominant group by far, being completely different from previous generations due to the technology impact. The aim of the paper is to identify which leadership style and behavior affects most positively millennial job satisfaction in a multinational environment, and to understand the differences between millennials and non-millennials. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, known as the MLQ, was answered by 167 representative employees from various multinational corporations, 125 of whom are millennials. Based on the results, transformational style is strongly correlated with and positively affected by millennial job satisfaction. Moreover, transformational style is a significant predictor of increased millennial satisfaction, and more specifically, idealized attributes and intellectual stimulation are behaviors that have been validated to increase it. On the other hand, individual consideration has been proven to have a productive effect by increasing non-millennial job satisfaction. According to the findings, millennial workforce leaders need to move towards a more transformational style, based on more idealized attributes and an intellectual stimulation approach, if they want to increase their satisfaction and avoid unwanted attrition. Basically, millennials are searching for leaders who trust and embrace innovation, creativity, critical thinking and, most importantly, leaders who also question the status quo.

Perceived Leadership Behaviors among Multigenerational Managers

Managing four generations with different set of beliefs, values and attitudes is a critical challenge for an organization. Intergenerational conflict may emerge from diverse preferences and misinterpretation of words and actions. For instance, in the digital era tech-savvy millennials wanted to have flexible work schedules (Clendon & Walker, 2012) and less interaction with their managers (Schultz & Schwepker, 2012). Meanwhile, Baby Boomer managers preferred direct communication (Holian, 2015) because they wanted to have face-to-face discussion. Additionally, in many organizations Baby Boomer managers were still implementing command-and-control management (Faller & Gogek, 2019), while Gen Y and Gen Z workforce favored constructive feedbacks (Anderson & Buchko, 2016). For young workforce, specifically Gen Z, if their managers practice the traditional boss-subordinate relationship, they prefer to quit and move to another company. On the one hand generational diversity is an advantage, but on the other hand it can be disastrous if not handled well. Leaders are expected to minimize workplace miscommunication and conflict arising from multigenerational differences between staff and managers to attain organizational performance. To date, many leadership styles have been researched, however Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire XII has been the most widely used to measure how a leader should behave to reduce conflict in the multigenerational work environment, criticize poor work of older-generation followers, and emphasize on high levels of performance (Littrell et al., 2018). The objectives of this study are to investigate the perceived leadership behaviors and the differences in perceived leadership behavior among multigenerational managers. Keywords: Gen Y, Indonesia, LBDQ-XII, Multigenerational Workforce, Perceived Leadership Behavior

Unpacking “OK, Boomer”: Using Lifespan Concepts to Ease Intergenerational Conflict

With the “OK, Boomer” media exchange in late 2019, intergenerational conflict is touted as existing at an all-time high. Although the age diversity of today’s workforce is unprecedented, spanning nearly five generations of workers, generational stereotyping and its influence on the identities and experiences of those individuals is not new. In this talk, we will advocate for the role that lifespan developmental psychology can play in preparing students to enter a sometimes contentious, misrepresented multigenerational workforce. We will demonstrate the value of helping students distinguish normative age-graded, normative history-graded, and non-normative influences to better understand individual similarities and differences in developmental experiences. We will discuss research on age identity and generational identity as distinct and self-enhancing life-span processes. Finally, we will highlight the developmental barriers that must be navigated in order to foster intergenerational cohesion.

Age Matters: The Impact of Ageism on Health, Cognitive Impairment, Work Lives, and Anti-Ageist Interventions

Age is a social constructions. The treatment of people on the basis of their age, imposes serious psycho-emotional, social and economic costs on society and older people. The experiences of ageism may be exacerbated when other forms of acute and chronic forms of oppression are experienced due to racism, sexism, etc. The first paper looks at the impact of ageism on older people’s health. Their systematic review of studies showed that ageism detrimentally and consistently impacted older individuals in 11 health domains, with the prevalence of significant findings increasing over time. Informed by NIA’s Health Disparities Framework, the second paper examines the relationships between discrimination and protective factors on cognitive functioning. Their analyses of the Health and Retirement Survey data reveal, among other things, that everyday experiences of ageism significantly worsen older adults cognitive functioning. Using survey data of adults throughout the life-span, our third presenter examines how multiple identities (such as age and gender) influence employees’ perspectives on workplace fairness in hypothetical situations. The findings are informative to human resource departments in ensuring workplace fairness within the context of a multigenerational workforce. The final paper examines two efforts to disrupt ageism, specifically interventions that target students in an intergenerational program and staff members of senior living communities. Results from these evaluations point to an increase in positive attitudes among students and a reduction in ageist behaviors among staff members. All presenters will discuss policy, practice and research implications of their studies.