The leadership revolution: Emerging Generation Y leaders charting new pathways for doing business globally

Royal Roads' Carolin Rekar Munro received an SSHRC Insight Grant in 2017 to study how organizations are preparing for the next generation of leaders.

Worldwide, businesses are facing a leadership shortage of crisis proportions, and it's getting worse. In 2015, the Global Leadership Forecast declared “an insatiable need for more capable leaders” which will take a “leadership revolution” to rectify.

What's caused this deficit? Dr. Carolin Rekar Munro thinks a large part of it is the generational shift in workers. Internationally, we share concerns about an escalating leadership deficit resulting primarily from Baby Boomers leaving the workforce and the mounting complexity and scale of problems confronting organizations. Organizations are troubled by the pounding pace of change socially, politically, economically, and environmentally, and by the scarcity of individual competency and the number of leaders equipped to lead in volatile times. Measures to close the leadership gap have not been readily forthcoming as organizations cite more pressing priorities, such as focusing on survival in the global economy. Dr. Rekar Munro thinks that if the gap persists, implications could be far reaching for businesses, the economy, and our collective future.

Rekar Munro set out to investigate how organizations internationally are preparing for the next generation of leaders, Generation Y (GenY) – those born between 1981 and 2000, who bring a distinct set of expectations and behaviours to the workplace. Rekar Munro also wants to understand the anticipated changes that GenY envision when it comes to doing business internationally. Noted as the highest performing and ambitious of the generations, and most likely to ignite radical change, GenY is considered the solution to the leadership gap. However, the challenge will be to attract, engage, and retain GenY. They bring a strong entrepreneurial spirit into the workplace and, if not satisfied, they are quick to leave in pursuit of other organizations or to explore self-employment, which is an attractive option more so for GenY than any other generation.

Using surveys and focus groups with senior organizational leaders and employees in the GenY cohort from diverse sectors across the globe, Rekar Munro plans to fill an important gap in our understanding of generational change and leadership needs for organizations the world over. With China and India's Millennial population, the world's two largest populations, coming into their own, the timing couldn't be better.