BOOMER LEADERSHIP STILL LEADS

via royceharrell.com

You Get Older And Wonder When Boomer Leadership Ends? It Doesn’t.

Chances are good that you’ve been in the audience for a big presentation.

It might have been a work related pep rally, a concert, or a spiritual event.

Do you remember the speaker at the event, the band? You do if they reached you and made an impression. Maybe you’ve felt like thanking them.

Flip the script and think of the times you stood in front of a group to talk. Maybe it was no big deal to you, but just like you remember others, people in your audience remember you.

“Oh, please,” you say, “it was the post season awards ceremony for youth soccer. No one remembers that.”

From someone who thought the same thing: You are wrong. They remember.

But what do they remember?

Boomer Leadership, 1.

At a concert your favorite band played music off their new CD. Not the old stuff, not your favorite song. They played to a new audience and you didn’t like it.

When it was all over you sat there hurt and disappointed that you fell for their marketing scheme. Then they played the encore and all the songs you know by heart. You left feeling great, ready to buy that new CD.

What happened? The band knew their audience and how to pace the show. They got you in, spun you around, and sent you home with more than you expected after they refused convention and didn’t perform their hits like a flesh and blood juke box. Until the end.

Muhammad Ali once said he coasted the first two minutes of each round and fought like a demon the last minute because that’s what the judges remember. And that’s what your band did.

Boomer Leadership, 2.

The church minister has a little showman in them when they pace their sermons, donations, and final message, the same way. You leave on a high feeling glad you were there. And you were.

The mega-church guys all draw huge numbers because of their message and they way they deliver it.

During my search for a wedding official I scouted a few churches. One was a broken down building with an Old Testament yeller at the podium and four people in the congregation. As a Portland baby boomer I was an outsider.

The man ranted about church support then shifted into his hatred for the Sodom and Gomorrah on the Willamette. In other words, Portland. He hated Portland and the lack of restraint. That was thirty years ago. Imagine his talk today. Even saying Portland would make his head explode in righteousness.

I took his hate for Portland as a general feeling for people from Portland. He didn’t get my wedding gig, though he was steely eyes sure he did when he bid us adieu. His wasn’t the right leadership style for my crowd. Not everyone enjoys a live band playing ZZ Top, homemade lasagna, kegs of beer in the rain, and ladies pinning money on the groom during the cash dance.

Even now it sounds like a pagan ritual, which is important when you marry someone related to Druids.

Boomer Leadership, 3.

Finally, if you had a job of great responsibility, a job head-hunters seek qualified applicants to fill, and you leave after twenty year, know you’ve made an impact.

People you never met have an opinion about you. People you helped, mentored, guided, all sing your praise, but it’s the quiet ones that remember you best. They have less to work with so every move you made impacted them.

Boomer leadership doesn’t end with the job. Like a retired teacher, you’ll find people coming up to you the rest of your life. You’ll be in the far reaches of civilization, like Portland’s eastside, and someone will call your name. How do you prepare for that future?

You want to show your former employees that your job in your former company wasn’t a fluke. They need to see you succeed as much as they need to succeed. Your success is their success.

Whether you become the next CEO of Shell Oil or pump gas in one of their stations, your former people want to know you adapted to your new reality. Leaving a job under anything less than personal choice puts too many things up in the air. Some people crawl into a hole, some let themselves go and become unrecognizable to their previous life.

Boomer leadership means more than wallowing around. It means airing out, shaking out, cleaning out. Renew your interests and add more. Reconnect with family and friends. Make time to let them think the new you is the real you.

Work isn’t called play for a few good reasons. When you’d rather be somewhere else but your job isn’t done for the day, it’s work. Everyone is leaving early but you need to finish a proposal, write a grant, or review files, you’re at work. Your staff is busy making birthday cards on the clock and you need them producing so you cancel a birthday party, it’s work.

You plan your vacation, make reservations, then your boss tells you to cancel because a new client has special needs only you can tend to, it’s work.

People from your old job know the price you’ve paid over the decades. To them you are a legend and that’s what they expect when they go a year without seeing you. Don’t let them down.

Boomer leadership means keep on keeping on. Like a new baby who changes month to month, they don’t seem much different when you see them every day. Your people need to see you revitalized. Show them that and they’ll know how to take their own pink slip.

See boomer, it’s not all about you like you’ve been reminded, but it is all about you in their eyes.

Be sure to give them the best view they’ve ever had.