Cheryl Cran is the author of “The Control Freak Revolution”, “50 Ways to Lead & Love It’ and “Say What You Mean- Mean What You Say”.

Barack Obama is a Gen X/ Boomer cusper and his recent election as the President of the United States of America heralds a distinct Generation X leadership style. The hallmarks of his Generation X leadership are:

• Barack’s campaign used technology in all of its glory to support their efforts they used MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Email Newsletters, LinkedIn, Plaxo and all forms of social networking to get the word out.
• He used collaboration and support language rather than divisive and attacking
• He selected a Vice President who was far more experienced than himself but did not see that as undermining his power – rather as supporting it
• When elected he remained humble and focused on serving the whole rather than celebrate his personal achievement
• He is grounded by his commitment to his family and to their needs in addition to his work responsibilities

There is something all leaders can learn from this and we need to be watching his leadership closely in order to continue to gain insights on what makes a great leader.

There is clearly an opportunity to see the merits of Gen X leadership and what a leader lacks in terms of ‘time on job’ they gain in attitude, willingness to learn and humility. The long held beliefs that in order to effective in leadership there must be length of time on the job are shifting rapidly. In the workplace both Gen X and Gen Y do not understand why they would need to do a job for ten years before being considered for leadership positions. Their thought process is that if they have performed the job at levels of excellence, have earned the respect of their peers and demonstrated their willingness to learn that is merit for their promotion.

Many boomers still hold the leadership positions which they have worked hard for and there is a shift afoot in many organizations where performance is reviewed based on sharing of intellectual knowledge and success planning. Newsweek magazine stated it will take 3 workers to replace 1 baby boomer. Baby boomers are always proud when they hear this but Gen X and Y hears it and says, “Why did you work so hard for so long?” The reason it will take 3 workers is because Gen X and Y work smarter not harder – something we boomers are now realizing we need to be doing.

Of course a huge part of the solution of a shortage of workers is going to be technology and we will continue to see massive change in this arena. The opportunity for company leaders at this time is to have an active succession plan in place that includes leadership assessments and aptitude tests when hiring.

In addition organizations are in a time crunch on downloading the hard drive of the baby boomers brain to the Gen X and Gen Y workers so that organizations do not lose their hard earned on the job experience knowledge. Technology can assist in storing processes, rationale behind policy and past decisions and central access for all workers so that there is ease in information sharing.

Barack Obama is a Gen X/ boomer cusper and extraordinary inspiration.

Company leaders can have phenomenal leaders by beginning the search for natural leadership tendencies from the moment someone is hired, reviewing achievements every 90 days, coaching and supporting skill development and recognizing character and performance rather than simply time on the job.

For more information on Cheryl Cran, please contact Speakers’ Spotlight.

Tags: Baby Boomers, Barack Obama, Cheryl Cran, Gen Y, Generation X Makes Good Leaders, generational differences, keynote speaker, Succession Planning