#17 It’s time for Gen X to step up our leadership
American gerontocracy, intergenerational learning, and two leaders to learn from
Dear friends,
This is a long one — more of a magazine-length essay than a casual newsletter. So if you have more time for listening during your commute than reading on your couch, you can hear me read a 17-minute version by pressing the play button above. I’d love to hear your feedback on this one — from Boomers, Millennials, Gen Zers, and my fellow Gen Xers stuck in between the mayhem. Does it resonate? Do you disagree? You can either respond to this email or leave a comment below.
For most of my life, I was the youngest person in the room. The majority of my friends and colleagues were older. I dated older women and spent time with their older friends. I allegedly represented “the youth” when speaking at conferences to older audiences.
Now, I’m more frequently the oldest person in the room. Many of my cycling friends are considerably younger, in their late 20s and early 30s. This past week I traveled with two colleagues, one five years and the other nearly 15 years younger than me — and I am now older than most of my peers at work. To this day, when a meeting gets off track, I find myself looking around for the adult in the room — and then it dawns on me, oh shit, I’m the adult in the room, they’re looking at me.
It’s only a matter of time until we will become them ourselves
Bob Dylan of all people knows he didn’t want to grow up to be the old guy complaining about the youth, and yet he can’t quite hold back. In his new book, he writes:
We all rail at the previous generation but somehow know it’s only a matter of time until we will become them ourselves. Every generation gets to pick and choose what they want from the generations that came before with the same arrogance and ego-driven self-importance that the previous generations had when they picked the bones of the ones before them.
There is no shortage of complaints about young people today. They are too fragile, entitled, impatient, distracted, sensitive, and demanding. They call out, cancel, moan, and complain. A simple headline could necessitate a mental health day. A casual aside or mistaken pronoun could stir the ire of a Slack mob that submits a “harm report” to HR.
I hear these complaints most often from friends and former colleagues who lead non-profit organizations and are at their wits end. “All they do is complain,” I’m told. “Nobody is willing to work anymore. We spend all of our time rehashing internal tired equity conversations, but we’re not getting anything done.” My friends who lead organizations won’t talk about this publicly, fearful of the effect it would have on morale and fundraising, but give them a couple of drinks in a safe space and they unload. Many point to Ryan Grim’s article “The Elephant in the Zoom,” a thoroughly reported examination of the implosions at progressive nonprofits, but you won’t find a mention of it on social media. It must be the most viral article to have escaped Twitter. Grim highlights the divergent views of managers, who want to focus on the work, and younger employees, who want to address internal inequities within the workplace first:
For Boonstra and others of her generation, the focus should have been on the work of the nonprofit: What could Guttmacher, with an annual budget of nearly $30 million, do now to make the world a better place? For her staff, that question had to be answered at home first: What could they do to make Guttmacher a better place? Too often, they believed, managers exploited the moral commitment staff felt toward their mission, allowing workplace abuses to go unchecked.
There is mutual resentment and animosity between burned out Boomer leadership, who already paid their dues, and a more demanding, diverse Millennial workforce, who won’t put up with old assumptions. Stuck in between is my generation of 40-something middle managers. I can relate to both sides. I grew up with the same workaholic, productivity-worshipping norms of my older colleagues and I’m often bewildered by what can seem like blasé apathy of younger workers. At the same time, I learn so much from my younger colleagues. They have made me question why so much of my identity was wrapped up in my work. Why was I quick to offer help, but struggled to ask for it? Why didn’t I speak up against the dominant cultural norms at the office so that others would feel more comfortable? Why has so much of my career been about reforming policies in other countries instead of where I was born?
They may come off as unwilling to work hard while quick to demand change of others, yet their demands mostly strike me as totally reasonable. In fact, most of their demands should have been changes that we made 15 years ago.
The eldercrats: American gerontocracy
A gerontocracy is a form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population. In many political structures, power within the ruling class accumulates with age, making the oldest the holders of the most power.
The downside of the average lifespan going up 20 years during the lifetime of my grandmother is that, god damn, these people don’t seem to ever retire. They became leaders in their 40s and now, 40 years later, they refuse to go away. Instead of investing in the next generation of leadership, they are still touting their own achievements and lecturing the youth about not knowing how things work. Chuck Grassley has been a congressperson representing Iowa since the 1950s and has been Senator for over 40 years — my entire lifetime. Twenty years ago, when he was just a few years past retirement age himself, he chaired the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging! 😂 And yet, at 89 years old he’s running for another six-year term. Dianne Feinstein was 36 years old when she was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors; now at 89 years old, she has been an elected official for more than 50 years and California’s senator for over 30 years.
Gerontocracy used to be an African issue, as anti-colonial independence leaders from the 1950s and 60s vied for political power among themselves instead of investing in young people to shape their independent nations’ democratic norms and institutions. 78-year-old Yoweri Museveni has been the president of Uganda since 1986, and still, there are four other African presidents who have been in power for longer!
But don’t count America out of the Gerontolympics. In 1980, when I was born, 46.3% of senators were in their 40s and fewer than 5% were over 60. Today, only 17.5% of senators are in their 40s and over 40% are 60 or older. And it’s not just politics. CEOs are getting older, nonprofit leaders are older, teachers and university professors are older. The average age of a Nobel Prize winner used to be 37; today it’s closer to 50. Across society, older people are holding onto power and underinvesting in the leadership of the next generation.
Leaders to learn from
Those of us who come from a different generation of activists have to recognize that it's time for the younger generations to take the lead and show us the way.
At this point, you may think that I simply want everyone older than 60 to get out of my way. On my least generous and most defensive days, I sometimes do have that thought. But it’s not how I really feel. In fact, I want to work more closely with my older colleagues. I want them to invite me into the rooms where decisions are made. I want to learn from their experience and history. I want them to take my ideas seriously and engage in debate if they think that I’m wrong. I want them to invest in my growth and leadership.
But that has rarely been my experience. No, my experience has been that I need to elbow my way into the rooms where decisions are made. I demand access to budgets and bylaws. I invite myself to their lunches and events. I read their books from decades ago and remind them what they wrote when they were more idealistic and less overwhelmed. No, my experience has been that most Boomer leaders in their 50s and 60s want to hold onto power, not share it.
There are some important exceptions, and I want to name two of them. The first is Angela Davis, who is memorialized on t-shirts for her Black Power activism (and jail time) in the 1970s. But unlike most of her fellow activists from the period, Davis doesn’t sit around with her peers complaining about the youth. No, she travels around the country, engaging with youth activists, befriending them, cheering them, sharing her own history and her admiration for their activism. Davis was ahead of her time when she criticized the feminist movement for being too white in the 1970s, but it took her a long time to come out as a lesbian in 1997. She says that young activists are “doing today what should have started 150 years ago.” In the final paragraph of a long profile in the New York Times from 2020, she emphasizes:
I’ve come to the conclusion that our work as activists is always to prepare the next generation. To create new terrains so that those who come after us will have a better opportunity to get up and engage in even more radical struggles. And I think we’re seeing this now.
Angela Davis notes that today’s young activists “have avoided the pitfalls of their predecessors: primarily, a cultish fixation on a charismatic male leader.” Pointing to the three co-founders of Black Lives Matter, she says, “younger activists know so much more than we did at their age. They don’t take male supremacy for granted. One aspect of this shift in leadership models has to do with a critique of patriarchy and a critique of male supremacy.”
Note that Davis talks about befriending younger activists, learning from them, and supporting them. Angela Davis is nearly 60 years older than actor & activist Yara Shahidi and yet you can detect a genuine mutual admiration and respect between the two.
Speaking at Syracuse University in 2017, Davis told the gathered students:
What is exciting about committing oneself to the struggle for freedom, is that as one moves along, and as one wins victories, one learns more about the possibilities that can be contained within the category of freedom.
Those of us who come from a different generation of activists have to recognize that it's time for the younger generations to take the lead and show us the way.
Letting younger generations take the lead doesn’t mean older generations ought to retire to Margaritaville. No, we need their support, experience, energy — and frankly, their time. Which brings me to the second Boomer leader I admire, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who is still relatively young at 64 but has already lived several professional lives as a corporate lawyer, university dean, State Department official, and think tank CEO. I’ve read a lot of books on leadership, and I can’t think of any that is more vulnerable and wise than Slaughter’s latest, Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics.
I noted earlier the tension between Boomer nonprofit bosses, who want to focus on the external work, and their largely Millennial workforce, who want to first address internal inequities. Renewal charts a map to achieve both. After receiving difficult feedback of distrust from her staff, Slaughter writes:
Looking back, I can see that many of the issues raised tap into the inter-generational differences that so many Boomer bosses complain about with largely Millennial workforces. We are unprepared, unsure, and often uncomfortable trying to manage a young generation that is more radical, demanding, and impatient for change. While I naively assumed that my good intentions were both apparent and sufficient, many staff wanted far more action on issues of race, gender, and class.
So how did she overcome the trust gap? The chapter titles offer a good overview: Run toward the criticism; Connect to change; Rethink risk; Lead from the center and edge; Share power; Looking backward and forward; Building big; Giving and finding grace.
Renewal is a masterclass on how nonprofit leaders can use our current upheaval to transform themselves, their organizations, and society. Throughout the book, she shares her missteps and what she has learned from her younger colleagues. Toward the end of the book, she takes a moment to address her fellow Boomers, especially women born between 1950-1970, who are now entering their 50s, 60s, and 70s:
As I write this, we have the time, experience, and enough power to drive really big change. We can join hands with the women just behind us who do not have caregiving responsibilities and are ready to push. Our Millennial and Gen Z daughters and granddaughters must help, learning from us, but also making sure that we are not hopelessly out of touch. My favorite line in Bernadine Evereristo’s novel, Girl, Women, Other, is when 15-year-old Yaz tells her mother, “feminism is so herd-like; to be honest, even being a woman is passe these days.” These younger women may be surprised to find that their grandmothers are primed for action. Pat Mitchell calls her generation of women “dangerous.” In her memoir, Becoming a Dangerous Woman, she makes the case quite simply, “At this time in my life, about to turn 75, I have nothing left to lose.”
Slaughter notes that post-menopause is a life stage of “high productivity and zero reproductivity.” These women are “past the likability trap” and make up the fastest-growing segment of the workforce.
Inter-generational learning
We are at peak animosity and distrust between Boomer bosses and Millennial workers, and no one is less happy about it than my fellow Gex X middle managers.
I can (and do) listen to Boomers complain about Millennials and Millennials complain about Boomers all day. It’s pretty entertaining. But it’s not productive. It’s time for my fellow Gen Xers and me to step up our leadership and bridge the divide. To do so, we need Boomers to cede some power and we need Millennials to give us some grace.
Over the past few months, I have quickly become close with two new friends. Kiet is 51. I’m 42. Chi is about to turn 30. We consume different pop culture, are at different stages in our careers, and are enmeshed in different social norms. We learn from one another. We give honest feedback. We grow. It’s a safe space to figure out what in the hell is going on out there. (If you’re a runner or cyclist in your 20s or 60s, we’re recruiting! 🤣 No, but really.)
For the longest time, I’ve been hesitant about senior leadership. Part of it is about being yet another white dude. But also, who would want to jump into the fray? It doesn’t look like fun! But now, as I see so many burned-out Boomers and checked-out Millennials, I wonder if I’d be good at it. I wonder if it’s time for me to step up.
What I know for sure is that it’s a lot more fun to learn from one another than to battle each other.
A useful tool
It was a blast to cycle with some new and old friends in Ghana last weekend. When I landed to SFO, the Delta baggage office said they couldn’t locate my bike. Fortunately, I had an Apple AirTag in my saddle bag, so I was able to show them where it was on the airport map. They called someone, directed them to my bike on the map, and it arrived five minutes later with apologies.
Kudos to Florence Nakaggwa
As I write this, I’m following the race tracking map of the totally bonkers, nonstop Rhino Run gravel biking race from Cape Town, South Africa to Windhoek, Namibia — a 1,700 mile bikepacking gravel race with over 88,000 feet of elevation gain. I have traveled those roads by truck and I can tell you — there is nothing out there! These cyclists are carrying their gear. They’re barely sleeping and when they do, it’s in a sleeping bag on the side of the road with wildlife all around. I can’t fathom doing something like this.
19-year-old Ugandan Florence Nakaggwa is currently leading the women and currently in 9th place overall — beating most of the men as well. She has already ridden 1,100 miles and has another 600 to go in the next three or four days. She is currently just behind Austrian Max Riese and in front of Romanian Bagoly Levente.
While I don’t think that I’ll ever have the condition or courage to do this myself, I’ll be watching and cheering her on. And maybe I’ll join Florence for next year’s 4-day Migration Gravel Race in Kenya in June. Let me know if you’re interested!
Have a great weekend!
David
The first half made me think about our current government landscape with old politicians refusing to give up power. And the reason they are able to do so is because we have too few young people who are going into government. In the last couple of years, I’ve been encouraging my high school students to consider a career in policy and public service. I myself have Googled how to become a city council member. Loved how you brought Davis and Slaughter stories into the fold, and the part about Boomers need to cede power and Millennials need to give some grace. As always, a good read/listen.