By Tim Elmore Three Essentials to Leading Someone from a Different Generation  I continue to hear stories of Boomer or Gen X managers who become frustrated at the audacity of Generation Z or Millennial team members. One manager said a young job candidate told him in her interview: “I’m going to have your job in eighteen months.” Similarly, young professionals tell me

By Tim Elmore     A college dean recently acknowledged to me an obvious truth. He said, “The older I get, the more different students become.”   He said this, tongue firmly planted in cheek, but I knew exactly what he meant. The generation gap, a term first coined by magazine editor John Poppy back in the 1960s, is more real today than ever. This

By: Tim Elmore Jared and Tabitha dated for ten months. They met on an app, and the first four months of their relationship was limited to online interactions. When they chose to MIRL (Meet In Real Life), the encounter went well. At that point, they began to see each other face to face. In month ten, however, Jared decided to move on.

By: Tim Elmore A mother approached me recently after I spoke at a parents’ conference. She told me how much she cared for her 13-year-old son, yet many of his teachers referred to her, not as a “helicopter parent,” but as an “Apache Helicopter.” When she acknowledged how intrusive she was in her son’s life, I had to agree. She admitted to

By: Tim Elmore I lived in southern California for many years. Every year, it seemed we heard about another fire that broke out. The dry, warm weather coupled with a careless mistake can be deadly. Wildfires have been rampant, destroying miles of property as they spread. During the summer and fall of 2018, California experienced the deadliest wildfire season in its history. A

By: Tim Elmore Did you hear what just happened? Last week, Girl Scouts of the USA posthumously awarded ten-year-old Amerie Jo Garza of Uvalde, Texas, one of the highest honors bestowed in Girl Scouting: the “Bronze Cross.” Notice—the honor was given to Amerie Jo after she died.   The Bronze Cross is awarded for saving or attempting to save a life at the risk

By: Tim Elmore I distinctly remember interviewing for a full-time job with John C. Maxwell in 1982. John was not famous yet, except in certain circles, but he already displayed lots of agency. His personality filled the room. I was graduating college that year, and he expressed an interest in my skills. When I look back at that exchange, which later turned

By: Tim Elmore I just made a discovery. For the first time in my life, I realized I know people who are from seven sociological generations.  My aunt and uncle are from the Senior generation (1902-1928). My mother and father-in-law are from the Builders generation (1929-1945). My wife and I are both from the baby boomer generation (1946-1964). My teammates Shawn and

By: Tim Elmore   A boy named Norris began mowing lawns four years ago. I’m not talking about mowing his own lawn; he’d been doing that already. I mean he began mowing lawns for other people who needed it, starting with a disabled neighbor who lived nearby. He didn't make a big deal of it. He just marched over and mowed the lawn.

By: Tim Elmore An NFL football coach recently told me of the tangible changes in professional athletes today compared to 25 years ago, when he first began coaching. He mentioned that players have a higher expectation of what they’ll receive as part of their compensation and feel entitled to having a voice in how the team is managed. These expectations are not

By: Tim Elmore   It’s been over 50 years since the term generation gap was first coined by Life magazine editor John Poppy. During the 1960s, he noticed a gap between the young baby boomers and their parent’s generation, the Builders. Those boomers used new language the adults did not recognize. I am one of those baby boomers and, believe it or not,

By: Tim Elmore       As I spot “Help Wanted” signs on the windows of many establishments today, I often consider the qualities young job seekers should learn. Too often, young adults don’t take entry-level positions because they feel those jobs are beneath them. I recently reflected on the early experiences I had in my career that taught me lessons I may not have

By: Tim Elmore   “My students enter the classroom as if they’re customers. They expect me to serve them curriculum, make it fun, and work hard to ensure they make good grades. It’s like they’re consumers,” bemoaned one teacher I met in Missouri.   Then, she had an epiphany.   “I guess they are consumers in one sense,” she concluded. “They digest a subject each day for

By: Tim Elmore   Last month, a Chicago Metra train conductor was robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight. Not long after, photos of the robbery suspect were released, and that’s when the armed thief was apprehended. Even though he was wearing a mask, it all happened so quickly.    You’ll never guess how the thief was captured so fast.   When the security camera’s photos were published,

By: Tim Elmore     Last October, The New York Times ran an article called “The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them.” It was about how entitled millennials are unable to manage their even more entitled Gen Z workers. The piece was interesting but needed explanation. The stories were anecdotal and didn’t completely line up with the data. It’s important we

By: Tim Elmore     Brianna Rivera is an articulate high school student who wrapped her arms around a challenge that teens face today. Finding herself thrust back into society after quarantine, she said, “That’s a lot for me, after having been in isolation for 18 months. You want to get back into the swing of things, but there’s something kind of holding you

By:  Andrew McPeak         A few months ago, I downloaded TikTok. Within minutes, I understood what all the fuss was about. I was laughing. I was surprised. I was angered. I was awed. Not only did I experience a wide range of emotions, but I also noticed that each emotional experience was short, beckoning me to keep swiping to the next video. “After

By: Tim Elmore At the dawn of 2021, I decided to do something new for you.  You may have noticed that blogs over the past several months have started to focus primarily on social and emotional learning and life skills. Growing Leaders made the decision to focus on these topics because we believe that young people need to cultivate these inward skill

Today, we hear from Andrew McPeak. Andrew is a next gen researcher, speaker, and author for Growing Leaders.  I met two students recently who painted a perfect picture of the struggle that we all face . . . when trying to make leaders out of the next generation. I was speaking to a group of students at a school in Georgia. They actually came to

Judith Pickens is the Senior Vice President for Program and Youth Development with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. In this backstage interview with Michael Hirsch, she speaks about the importance of developing students and the impact it has on the parents and the community. If you'd like to hear more, the audio from all six of the main sessions

I am finishing a new book that will be released next June. Would you like to be in it? I am looking for great ideas from people like you who have done something that has helped prepare a young person for adulthood, for life or for leadership. Ideas could be anything like… * A rule you came up with at home * A

When I was in junior high, I ran on our track team. I specifically remember trying out for the 100 yard, low-hurdle competition. Wow. It was so much harder than the 100-yard dash. There were these barriers in the way that kept slowing me down, distracting me from getting to my goal. I eventually gave up and became a long-distance

Inseparable (Part Nine) Nine Elements You Cannot Separate From Healthy Leadership Today is the final part in my blog series on nine ingredients that cannot be separated from quality leadership. Like eggs and bacon—they just go together. Any leader without them is incomplete or unhealthy. Since my blog posts are about leading the next generation, I’m hopeful these short articles will help