leadership exercises – MARI VERANO

June 11 2022

How Boomers Can Effectively Lead Gen Z

Therapists on Leadership leadership exercises, multigenerational

Reading Time: 10 minutes
Reading Time with Exercises: 45 minutes

If you’re a Baby Boomer feeling frustrated and confused working with Gen Z employees, this article is for you.

I’m a licensed therapist who LOVES working with Gen Z clients–and my Gen Z clients talk about the amazing results I help them achieve as a therapist.

I’m also not as young as I look—I’m in my early forties and old enough to have literally birthed a Zoomer.

Here are three things you can do to effectively lead and manage your Gen Z employees.

1. Examine the messages you received about young people.

These not only come from how your specific generation was raised, but also come from your own parents, your own parenting if you have kids, and your own grandparenting if you have grandkids.

If you’re wondering, “Mari, what the heck do you mean? What is this psychobabble bullshit?”

Consider the difference between these two executives and their beliefs about youth:

**EXECUTIVE A:**

“I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.”
– *Whitney Houston, “Greatest Love of All”*

“The duty of youth is to challenge corruption.” *– Kurt Cobain*

“The youth is the hope of our future.” *– Jose Rizal*

**EXECUTIVE B:**

“The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them.”
– *From a sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in A.D. 1274*

“The children now love luxury; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are tyrants, not servants of the households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.” – *Gijsbert van Hall, Mayor of Amsterdam, following a street demonstration in 1966*

“Children should be seen and not heard.” – *English proverb*

Leadership Exercise (10 minutes)

Which leader is most likely:

To be seen as a trusted mentor?
To be seen as “outdated” and “out of touch”?
To be open to the feedback of younger workers?
To see the feedback of younger workers as unnecessary complaints instead of constructive criticism?

Don’t judge yourself as you go through this. The point is this exercise is not to blame, but to help you become aware of the unconscious messages that may be influencing your leadership style.

If you grew up hearing negative messages about youth, this was not your fault. However, it is your responsibility to challenge these messages if they no longer serve you.

2. Reframe—or soften—the negative messages you received.

The point of this article is not to tell you, “Just think positive and all of your issues with Gen Z will go away!”

I do not engage in “love and light talk” to get your money so I can become the pet of some spoiled celebrity’s Instagram. As a licensed therapist, I am ethically bound to give you quality information that’s going to help you.

If you grew up with negative messages about youth, you probably don’t love managing your Gen Z employees. However, you can find ways to soften–or reframe– those negative messages to start building a different perspective about them.

Here are some examples of how to do this. (These are composites based on real client situations and are not direct quotes from clients.)

Reframing a Negative Message:

Client A: I hate myself.

Therapist: It sounds like in this particular situation, you’re really hard on yourself.

Client B: These little brats. Fuck teaching. I hate being a glorified babysitter.

Therapist: I hear you. It sounds like there are some things that need to change about how this school deals with difficult and demanding parents.

Client C: I think there might be something wrong with me because I have no idea what to say in this situation.

Therapist: So, this is a scenario you’ve never faced before.

Softening a Negative Message:

Client A: I hate myself.

Therapist: Would you say you really don’t like yourself when you get into these situations?

Client A: Yeah, that’s accurate.

Client B: I can’t do anything right.

Therapist: Would it be accurate to say that this particular skill is a growing edge for you, and management didn’t support you to succeed in this situation?

Client B: Totally, they just put this project on us and expected us to figure it out.

Client C: The world is shit and my life is shit.

Therapist: So, things seem pretty bleak right now and you don’t see a way out.

Client C: That’s right.

Leadership Questions (10 minutes):

Based on the examples above, how can you reframe or soften negative messages you received about Gen Z? How will these new messages help you connect with your Gen Z employees?

3. Choose the elder you wish to be.

Like it or not, you are an elder–and you now have the opportunity to choose the elder you wish to be based on your values.

You are beginning to face your own mortality and now have a chance to deepen the impact you wish to make on young people. In order for this to be a true, lasting, and sustainable impact, it must be based on your most important values.

If you value mentorship, you can dedicate the rest of your life to effectively mentoring young workers in your field.

If you value kindness, you can consciously bring kindness to all of your interactions with Gen Z workers even if you are feeling frustrated and angry with what they do.

If you value family, you can implement policies that allow Gen Z workers to feel safe and secure when starting, or taking care of, their own families.

If you’re not sure what your deepest values are, consider these questions:

Which values are you willing to go to jail for? Why?
Which values are you willing to die for? Why?
Imagine your Gen Z employees are at your funeral. They tell your surviving loved ones, “He/she/they were a person who valued _____” What’s in the blank?

Leadership Questions (15 minutes):

Answer one of the above questions.
How can your values help you become the elder you wish to be?

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Disclaimer:This blog does not replace in-depth, individualized help from a health professional or provide any diagnosis or treatment. By reading, you understand this statement and commit to seeking psychotherapy or medication support if needed. You also understand that Mari Verano, LLC will not be able to intervene in a crisis or court situation. Please seek your own legal and/or crisis resources.

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May 15 2022

Why You Should Listen To A Therapist On Leadership

Therapists on Leadership leadership exercises, leadership questions, SINCERE

Reading Time: 5 minutes
Reading Time with Exercises: 55 minutes

My name is Mari Verano, MA, LMFT. I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California with a certificate in Neuroscience for Clinical Practice and over twelve years of clinical experience. I have a thriving therapy practice where clients wait years to specifically work with me.

This is why you should listen to me when I talk about leadership.

I’m experienced in diagnosing an issue, the scope of the issue, and assessing the potential impact on a client’s life.

It is my job to give a correct diagnosis, intervene to reduce the symptoms of that diagnosis, and help keep clients (and the public) safe when symptoms spike to dangerous levels.

Similarly, effective leaders face reality. One of the top reasons why people quit their jobs is because they don’t like their supervisor, and many people don’t like their supervisor due to bad management—including their boss’s failure to acknowledge serious issues that everyone else can see.

Unhappy Employee: “They just let this person do whatever they wanted because this was their son. That spoiled little brat did whatever the hell they wanted and drove people who were actually doing their jobs out of here. Now I’m stuck doing whatever Daddy’s Little Boy wants although he doesn’t do shit.”

Happy Employee: “The CEO made it very clear that although his son worked for him, he got no special treatment. As a matter of fact, when his son showed up drunk to work, he immediately fired him. I happened to overhear him say he was sent to rehab. I respect that he followed through on what he promised.”

LEADERSHIP QUESTION:

(10 minutes)

What is one thing that you are not fully facing at work or in your personal life?

What are the implications if you don’t fully face this?

If the problem is out of my scope, I refer out or get help as soon as possible.

I am ethically bound to refer a client out to a provider with more expertise if the client is out of my scope of practice. (If I know I can’t help someone, I can’t fake it because this could be a life or death decision.)

Similarly, effective leaders hire consultants, read books, or meet with their colleagues if they encounter a problem they feel like they can’t handle alone.

Unhappy Employee: “My white, male boss pretended he knew everything. He didn’t consult the marketing specialist on our team–actually, he talked down to her because she was a Black woman. If we had listened to her, we wouldn’t have lost that much revenue this quarter. She was right, he was wrong, and he has too much ego to admit it.”

Happy Employee: “He was the best boss I ever had because he always hired people who were smarter than him in his areas of weakness, and he knew how to delegate.”

LEADERSHIP EXERCISE:

(10 minutes)

Name one area where you’d like to grow your expertise. Identify a resource that can help you (a book, podcast, mentor) and commit to learning from this resource five minutes a day.

I teach others how to lead themselves.

It is my job to make myself obsolete. I cannot ethically continue working with a client when a client no longer benefits from my expertise. At that point, I put together a plan to end therapy, remind the client of the skills that they learned, and wish them well on their journey—or refer them out to someone who has more expertise.

Similarly, effective leaders teach teams their leadership skills, are not threatened by the growth of their team members, and are humbly aware that one day, their team members might outgrow them.

Unhappy Employee: “When the boss was gone for a week due to an emergency, everything fell apart. It was clear that she hadn’t taught the team her procedures and protocols–hell, an e-mail with a few instructions would have done wonders. We were like rats on a sinking ship.”

Happy Employee: “When the boss was gone for a week due to an emergency, we knew exactly where policies, procedures, and protocols were to keep the company running.”

LEADERSHIP QUESTION:

(10 minutes)

What are some things you can do to help your team develop their skills?

I am trained to be truthful, but compassionate.

I’m trained to tell my clients the truth, but not in a way that’s abusive or accusatory. I strive to treat my clients with compassion and have compassion for their unique identities while also bringing unhealthy behaviors to their attention.

Similarly, effective leaders know how to have the hard conversations with someone while keeping the focus on performance. They know when to be more “hard ass” and when to be softer. They are not 100% “hard ass” nor 100% permissive. They know when to switch gears.

Unhappy Employee: ”When the boss was unhappy with how someone on our team performed, we knew because we could hear the yelling from down the hall. I started to think, ‘No salary is worth my mental health.’ I was out of there within six months.”

Happy Employee: “My boss always tells me exactly what I did wrong, specific steps to improve, and how she can help me.”

LEADERSHIP QUESTION:

(10 minutes)

How can you give difficult feedback with compassion?

5. I am ethically obligated to act if I suspect danger.

In California, licensed therapists are mandated reporters, which means that I am ethically bound to report suspected child or elder abuse.

Similarly, successful leaders know the “red flags” of employees committing unethical or illegal acts. They address these red flags as quickly and safely as possible.

Unhappy Employee: “I had warned my manager that this person was working under false credentials. I had called up the graduate school they had supposedly attended and there was no record of them. My manager brushed the matter under the rug until she found out this person was committing fraud. Sorry, but that was too little, too late. I’d already started looking for another position.”

Happy Employee: “My boss found out that the ‘star salesman’ had been stealing from under her nose for over a year. He was let go soon afterward. Everyone was shocked because this person was so charming and well-liked; however, my boss made it clear she has zero tolerance for anyone who steals from the company. We all walked away with a newfound respect for her.”

LEADERSHIP QUESTION:

(10 minutes)

What are some employee “red flags” that must be immediately addressed?

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