If you lead a multigenerational team, you may sometimes wonder why some work falls back on you especially towards the end of the day.  

If a deadline is close, maybe someone hasn't finished the work they were meant to have finished or there's more work than time, are you the one who ends up staying later to finish?

If you are, it’s not uncommon to feel that you're the only one making sure the work is completed and deadline is met and as a result, you can find yourself thinking -

“Why am I always the one sorting this out?”

This is a serious frustration for many leaders, however for many more leaders, there's a further thought that lies underneath the frustration,

“When I was in that role, I wouldn't have just left and gone home.”

This has now become more than a workload problem.

Why? In a multigenerational team, there can be very different ideas about commitment, responsibility and what should happen when the working day ends even when the work isn't finished.

Overwork used to be the currency of commitment

Many of today's senior leaders built their careers in workplaces where staying late said something about you.  It said you were committed, you were ambitious and you could be relied upon.  If something important needed to be finished, you stayed until it was finished. You might not have liked it, you might’ve complained about it internally but you did it.

Today, some of the younger people you're leading don't necessarily make that same connection.  Many are committed to working hard while also believing that their job shouldn't automatically have access to their personal life.

This is why at 5.30pm, you can have two people looking at exactly the same unfinished piece of work and seeing two completely different things.

You think,

“We can't leave this. It needs to be done.”

They think,

“I've done what I can today. Why should I give up my evening because there's too much work?”

Neither of you may say those words out loud but those are the different expectations that are there.  I refer to these expectations as our silent expectations, what we think but don’t ever communicate.   These are the expectations that nearly always come up at exactly the wrong time, in other words when the pressure is already on.

Is it really a work ethic problem?

When you've stayed late for the third time this month while somebody else has gone home, it's very easy to start making judgements.

They don't care as much.  They don't have the same work ethic.  They're not prepared to do what it takes.

This is the time where it's important to distinguish between different problems. Sometimes it is a performance problem for example if someone isn't completing the work they're responsible for or repeatedly misses deadlines or leaves colleagues dealing with the consequences, that does need to be addressed.  Being from a different generation isn't an excuse for poor performance.

However, sometimes that's not what's happening.  You might have a perfectly capable employee doing what they understand is a reasonable expectation of them, while you're expecting something they don't realise is part of the deal.

Now you have a very different problem.

It's working because you're stretching

Another difficulty that isn’t always talked about is that every time you pick up that extra piece of work, without realising it you can hide what's actually happening.

What do I mean?  So, you stay another hour, you finish the work, the deadline is met, the client gets what they were promised.  From the outside, everything looks fine but it's working because you're stretching.  If that's what happens every time the pressure increases, nobody necessarily addresses the why.

In this situation the question I'd ask isn't only,

“Why won't they do what I would have done?”

It's also,

“Why does this keep ending up with me?”

This question will take you somewhere much more useful.

What are you actually dealing with?

This used to happen to me and through trial and error what I learned was, try to identify the problem first, before automatically solving it yourself.

Is it performance?  Is somebody genuinely not doing what they're responsible for?  Is it capability?  Does someone need more experience, knowledge or support before they can take full responsibility for the work?  Is it capacity?  Is there simply more work than can realistically be completed in the time available?

Or is there a generational difference in expectations?

It’s not unreasonable for you to believe that when the pressure is on, everybody stays until the job is done.  Some may believe they can be committed to their work without continually giving up their personal time.

Those problems can all leave you in exactly the same position, which is still sitting at your desk when everybody else has gone home.  It is important to recognise they don't require the same response.

If it's performance, deal with performance.  If it's capability, look at what that person needs to do to be able to take greater responsibility.

If it's capacity, continually asking people to work longer isn't going to solve the underlying problem and if it's different expectations, those expectations need to be discussed rather than assumed.

What does commitment actually mean in your team?

This is a conversation I believe many multigenerational teams need to have much earlier to ensure the team is performing at it’s best.

What does taking responsibility actually mean?  When something genuinely urgent requires attention, what is the reasonable expectation?

What should someone do when they've reached capacity?  Who needs to know? What gets deprioritised?

Finally, what shouldn't automatically become the senior leader's responsibility simply because they're the most senior person there?

If those expectations haven't been discussed, the team will only work according to their own understanding of what a good employee looks like.  Remember those understandings may have been formed twenty or thirty years apart.

The senior leader thinks,

“How can they just leave?”

The younger employee thinks,

“Why is working late considered normal here?”

That doesn't automatically mean one person cares and the other doesn't but it does tell you that there may be a conversation missing in the equation.

The problem doesn't always stay at work

There's another reason this matters to the senior leader and I want to talk about it too. 

If you've done your own job all day and then spend another couple of hours picking up gaps, chasing unfinished work or dealing with something you hadn't expected to be doing, nine times out of ten that is probably what will be in your head when you go home.

You're tired.  You're still thinking about tomorrow.  You're annoyed that it's happened again.  Maybe somebody at home starts talking to you and you're only half listening. Maybe you're less patient.  Maybe you simply don't have much left in your tank.

Something that started at work with,

“I'll just get this finished...”  has now taken something from your personal life as well.  If this happens regularly, this isn't only a question about how your team works.  It's affecting you too.

Before you pick it up again

I don't think the answer is simply that younger generations need to work harder and I don't think it's as simple as telling senior leaders to stop expecting people to work beyond their hours.  The issue is what sits between those two positions, right in the middle, which is, the meaning of commitment has changed.

In some workplaces, the way work is organised and the expectations around what happens when there's too much of it, haven't changed with it.

The next time you find yourself thinking,

“Why has this fallen back on me again?”

Try not to dismiss the frustration and instead ask yourself what are you actually dealing with.

Performance?

Capability?

Capacity?

Or different generations working from different expectations about what commitment requires?

Until you know which problem you're dealing with, you'll probably keep doing what you've always done:

Picking it up yourself.

And taking the consequences home with you.

This is Where Leadership Meets Life

I'm Karyn and I work with senior leaders who are dealing with the realities of leading different generations, different expectations, different communication styles and different ideas about responsibility and work, while still being the person responsible for the results.

This matters to me because I've seen, both professionally and personally, what can happen at work doesn't always stay at work.

The pressure you carry, the problems you pick up and the responsibility you feel for others can very easily become what you take home with you.

That's why my work isn't only about helping leaders understand and lead multigenerational teams more effectively. It's also about helping them lead successfully without work continually taking from the rest of their life.

That's where leadership meets life.