Leading People, Not Stereotypes

Why personality types trump generational categories when it comes to leadership.

One of the points I hit in every training I do, whether it’s for experienced CEOs or new managers is the following:

Each of your employees is a unique collection of behaviors, preferences, and strengths. Only by understanding this mix for each person can you effectively manage, lead, and coach them.

The point is that no leader can apply a blanket style to everyone. To get the best out of people, we have to understand who they are as individuals, and to realize that they don’t necessarily think exactly like we do.

As we pursue this ideal of customized leadership, there are many models that can help. They offer shortcuts to understanding how people operate best at work and give us a language for talking about these differences.

One such framework is generational analysis, or understanding which category a person belongs to:

• Boomers

• Gen X

• Millennials

• Gen Z

There are certainly some interesting commonalities among these groups, each having grown up in different worlds and having divergent expectations when it comes to work. At the same time, when it comes to developing a leadership approach tailored to an individual, generational membership—i.e., their age—is notably less telling than other indicators.

After three decades of building and leading companies, I've learned that personality-based assessments like DISC, CliftonStrengths, and User Manuals deliver far more actionable insights than birth year ever will. The reason is simple: a 65-year-old Dominance type and a 25-year-old Dominance type have fundamentally more in common than two 30-year-old Millennials where one is high Influence and the other is high Steadiness.

The Generational Trap

Generational thinking creates dangerous oversimplifications. When we say "Millennials want constant feedback" or "Boomers resist change," we're painting with a brush so broad it obscures individual differences. These generalizations stem from shared cultural experiences (growing up during economic booms or busts, with or without technology) and may have some truth, but they tell us nothing about how someone processes information, makes decisions, or responds to pressure.