Literature of Leadership - A New Kind of Diversity
A NEW KIND OF DIVERSITY: Making the Different Generations on Your Team a Competitive Advantage. Tim Elmore. (2022, Kindle Edition)
Have you observed differences in values, preferences and/or expectations between older and younger team members in the workplace? Are you maximizing the strengths and differences of individuals on your team? As the title suggests, this book helps to build awareness and understanding of what the author contends is “the widening gap” between the five generations of workers who still influence our world and workplaces.
The author, Dr. Tim Elmore, is a world-renown expert on leadership and on Generations Y and Z. He has authored more than 30 books and trained thousands of organizational leaders. His newest book, A New Kind of
Diversity, is the first resource book to be published under John Maxwell’s Leadership Enterprise, Maxwell Publishing.
In this book, Elmore identifies the benefits that each of the five generations—including Builders, Baby Boomers, and Generations X, Y and Z—brings to the workforce, strategies for leveraging each generation’s benefits on a team, and leadership practice principles in building social and emotional intelligence among all team members.
The book is organized into three parts:
In Part One: Mind the Gap, an overview is presented of the values, customs and languages that differ across various generations; the importance of understanding these differences; and evidence-based factors contributing to the widening generational gap.
In Part Two: Manage the Gap, the author builds understanding of each generation in terms of the realities that shaped their personal development; the gifts they possess that may be of value to teammates from other generations; and insights on how best to build connections with them.
In Part Three: Bridge the Gap, the focus shifts to strategies for navigating varying generational
preferences, expectations, and tensions; strategies for building trust and uniting various generations; as well as strategies for building social and emotional intelligence, and for facilitating learning conversations and mentoring relationships.
The book includes an appendix that provides a preview on Generation Alpha and strategies for leading them.
As an added feature for exploring the topic, a free GQ assessment tool is available online at
https://www.maxwellleadership.com/nkd .
In effect, Elmore has developed evidence-based characteristic profiles (i.e., personas) of each generation which can provide valuable insights for addressing leadership challenges related to generational differences in the workplace. This is an excellent resource book for your leadership library.
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