WORK SMARTER
Millennials Want Mentors, Not Managers
Millennials want leaders who inspire, challenge and value them.
A couple of weeks ago, I had an interesting conversation with a former colleague of mine — we’d become fast friends after working together at a company that was recently acquired by Twitter. My friend, we’ll call him Andre, is ambitious and driven — he believes in nourishing the mind and body, in building a life that has a higher purpose, and in achieving greater meaning from his work.
He’s a classic millennial (people born between the 1980s and 2000s) — he’s hungry to learn and grow, and is driven to work hard for his success and personal development. He wants to be inspired; he aches to feel fulfilled.
After a year at his previous IT job, Andre called it quits. He’d felt discouraged by archaic corporate culture norms that dictated rules and constraints, and described his workplace as “suffocating, outdated and overtly hierarchical”. His boss had been a micro-managing bully, threatened horrific consequences if deadlines weren’t met, and treated his employees as resources to achieve corporate ends.
Andre felt he wasn’t treated with respect or recognized for his contributions. He wasn’t growing professionally and saw no reason to stay in a toxic…
