The Missing ‘Leadership’ Link

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Maxwell Leadership conference in Florida. What an exciting time being surrounded by like minded people learning and growing in their leadership, coaching and communication skills. One point highlighted by the presenters and participants is the fact that we are living in a world which lacks ‘high road’ leadership. You know the leaders we all want to grow and be mentored, coached, and led by. We will talk more about high road leadership later, but I want to bring up my personal observation on the demographic that was sadly missing in this group of enthusiastic leaders; it was our future leaders, our younger millennials, and Gen Z.

I didn’t miss the younger millennials and Gen Z because I thought we (the older ones) had something to teach them. And although there was an enormous amount of leadership wisdom in the room, what was missing is the innovative ideas, the energy, and the challenging of the wisdom young leaders would provide. The exchange of energy, innovation, passion, and wisdom would have made these amazing few days the best ever.

Leadership is not about maintaining the status quo, not about stability, it is about challenging the current to create a better future. The one thing I can say about this group of leaders at this conference, almost all were ready and eager to grow into the future. We were just missing our future, those when our leadership days are coming to a close will be leading teams, organizations, and our nations into the future.

Now I want to put a caveat on what I am going to call a new or emerging leader and although I defined a generational need there is also a need for innovative ideas and wisdom to continue to emerge from Gen X and the Baby Boomers. We live in a time with great leadership potential bringing the energy, ingenuity and potential of our young leaders working alongside (and attending growth events) with the enthusiastic wisdom of the generationally enhanced (ok older generation) will have influence in this ever-evolving world.