Would you accept a leader in the workplace who is younger than you?

Let’s imagine this scenario.

Your employer has hired a new leader for your team.

When he introduces himself to you, you can’t but notice that he is much younger than you expected him to be.

“Well”, you think to yourself, “they keep getting younger and younger. What’s going on?”.

When experience and rank used to come with age

In the past, employees had to wait years, not to say decades, for a vacancy to become available, so that they could literally grab the opportunity and climb a step up the corporate ladder.

These employees had to be very patient in the waiting process.

In the meantime, they gathered experience, and when they reached a certain age over the years, and the right opportunity arose, they proved the assumption that experience and rank come with age.

Thus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that these employees may find it hard to accept the fact that they are going to be led by a leader who is sometimes much younger than they are.

After all, where and how did he or she manage to gather all that experience that was considered to be essential for the leader of a team or organization to have in the good old days?

Could a younger leader be more experienced, skilled, and qualified than an older employee?

In fact, there are cases where a younger person in a leadership role can be more experienced than he or she is hoped to be.

This is not possible, of course, according to the way of thinking of some older employees who are used to old ways of doing things.

It could be possible, however, considering the fact that not all long-time employees have successfully managed to assume different and diverse roles, duties, and responsibilities while working for an employer during their professional career.

This means that although they may not lack experience, this experience may be not be relevant, when it comes to taking a leadership position.

So, if these employees stayed in a single role, and did not diversify or grow during their working life, chances are that a younger professional with a more diverse career can in fact be more experienced and have a broader knowledge of a specific area of skills required to take a leadership role, and lead successfully a team in the workplace, for example.

What if a younger leader faces resistance in the workplace: Would it be worth training and promoting an older employee to a leadership position?

Contrary to the above argument, an older leader may be equally, if not better, qualified for a leadership role to a leader of a younger age.

Even in cases where an old-time leader may lack the academic knowledge, degrees, etc. of a younger boss, he or she should still be viewed as a valuable asset of an organization, considering that an older employee is generally believed to be more mature in thinking and acting.

Another point is that, training a new leader on the ins and outs of running a specific organization takes time, and doesn’t always lead to a successful outcome, so this could be worth keeping an old employee and promoting him or her to a leadership position with time.

This type of a leader would probably not face as much resistance and animosity from other long-time employees in the company, as a younger leader may perhaps face.

Sources and further reading:

When Your Boss Is Younger than You

How do you feel about having a manager/boss that is much younger than you are?

A Guy 15 Years Younger Than Me Is Now My Boss

How to successfully manage people who are older than you