Generational Diversity: A Challenge For Leading Lights: An Analytical Study in the Education Sector

Abstract

Workplaces today are highly diversified with the employees coming from different countries, belonging to differences races, age groups, religions and having gender differences which results into workforce diversity. Valuing such a diverse workforce means being fully aware of differences in behavior and strengths, acknowledging biases/prejudices and avoiding assumptions among the employees and focusing on job performance and conduct. The generation to which a person belongs is one of the very important determinant of workforce diversity. It is reasonable to expect that someone from your own era or a person sharing same birth years will have quite a bit in common due to the environmental factors which they were all exposed to and shaped by when they were young. At present, workforce representing four generations viz. Traditionalist, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y are working side by side in the organizations. It is evident from the previous researches that differences in the attitudes, values, and beliefs influences the expectations for leadership across generations. In this paper, a modest attempt was made to check whether significant differences exist among faculty members towards the expected leadership styles. A sample size of 690 faculty members from management colleges in Delhi and NCR region was selected. Using Factor Analysis and One Way Anova, it was observed that there are significant differences in preferences of Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y members for their preferred leadership styles. The study calls the attention of HR Managers to this fact and suggest them to revise their leadership styles keeping in mind the changing needs and expectation of diverse workforce.