Four Steps to Giving Millennials a Voice on Your Leadership Team
Millennials are often the topic of conversation in business boardrooms and church committee meetings without having much representation in the room. While Millennials make up over one-third of the workforce in the U.S., you probably won’t find them in top leadership positions or executive boardrooms. Instead, the average age for C-suite member roles (CEO, CFO, COO) is 54 years old.
A recent Forbes article answers the question, “Why You Need To Give Millennials A Voice On Your Executive Team.” Companies that included younger voices on their leadership teams are positioned to fare better in the areas of technology advancement, increased sales, productivity, and profit. By including younger and diverse voices, they also create a more positive working environment for all employees.
In the same way, churches and other faith-based organizations can benefit by including younger representation at top levels of leadership. Here are four steps your church can take to give Millennials a voice on your leadership team:
Take a deeper look at your church staff or leadership team. Is it diverse by race and gender, as well as by age and generational representation? This honest self-assessment is the first place to begin as you seek to give Millennials a voice in leadership. Most churches believe they are doing a good job at including Millennial voices until they actually scrutinize their top levels of leadership. For Millennials looking for a church community, scoping out the pastoral team or staff page will be one of the first places they turn to your church’s website. If they can’t see themselves represented in the leadership of your church, they might wonder if this is the church for them.
Do you have a Millennial Mentor? We typically think of mentoring relationships as an older person pouring into a younger mentee. However, we all need to be learning from one another across generations. Ask a Millennial friend that you respect out to coffee or lunch, and engage them in conversation around important issues in society, church, and culture. Embrace a posture of humility and seek to do less talking and more listening.
Set up a transition plan and start training Millennials to take over leadership now. If your church, organization, or business is largely Boomer-led now, it won’t be much longer before those leaders begin moving toward retirement. Is your church planning ahead and preparing future leaders now? How are you training Millennials in the leadership model, culture, and values of your church or organization? Have you communicated the transition plan for current leaders to pass along leadership roles and responsibilities to younger leaders? If you plan ahead now and involve Millennials in the process, it will be a much smoother leadership transition down the road.
Take a risk and step down from leadership early, making space for Millennials. While it seems like a risk to hand over leadership responsibilities to the Millennial generation, remember that they are no longer young twenty-somethings fresh out of college. The oldest Millennials have now been in the workforce for nearly two decades and have struggled through two economic recessions. They likely have children of their own and have valuable insights to provide gained through life experiences. It’s time to let them lead your church or ministry, even at the highest levels of leadership.