There is something unique about the next generation of women coming into their own as leaders in corporate and as strong entrepreneurial success stories. The females of Gen Y have an innate sense of freedom in their approach to what they are doing. For them, there is no sense of obligation or fear attached to their achievements; what they do, they do for themselves, and if they fail, again, they fail on their own two feet.
This can at times be astonishing to those Generation Xers who stand before them, but equally it is a tribute to what they have given as mentors, models and trailblazers.
What Gen Y – and in turn Gen Z, and future generations to come – may not realise though, is that underneath the fierce ambition and the desire to see equality in the workplace of Generation X – are very different emotions.
Guilt and pressure.
As Generation X leaders, women (and to a certain extent, men, but this really is a gender specific guilt) who have succeeded in corporate, in their own businesses, in high-end government roles – feel an incredibly high focus on ‘I must succeed, I must be the best’. Not simply because they are driven by a personal desire to do well; but because it is inherently expected, through upbringing, and to a certain extent, peer pressure, to be the best.
As a generalisation, this is a generation of women who feel we have to ‘have it all’ because our parents fought to give it to us – our mothers through Protofeminism and managing to instill guilt by the truckload with a single simple sentence; ‘we gave up so much so you could have everything’. How can we repay education, university, and sacrifice by not succeeding? For many of us, we are the children of European immigrants directly scarred by the Second World War – again, the sacrifices made to give us the chance at having it all – how can we not repay it tenfold?
The number of Gen X accountants, lawyers and other now ex-corporate warriors who have ended up in their professions as a result of this real, or imagined, familial pressure is extraordinary.
We need to ask ourselves a very simple question – in fact, we need to take a leaf from Gen Y’s book (possibly not the one which involves staying at home past 25).
What if what we think we should do isn’t what we need to do?
Guilt as a motivator in business is absolutely appalling. Performance is never going to be wholehearted or 100% enthusiastic – the organisation is only ever going to get, at most, 7/8 of the iceberg. Even if you are honestly trying to give your all as a leader, if in the back of your mind you are thinking ‘I would rather be writing my own how to guide/running a restaurant/becoming a lawyer’ (someone has to) then there is always an absence of emotion and passion.
So remove the X-tra guilt. Don’t think about the weight of familial expectation. Peel away the trappings and focus on your own ambitions as opposed to the ambitions others put in place for you.
See what happens next.
Generation X are often accused of being hidebound and unimaginative by the Ys and Zs. That may be the constant little nagging voice which has a lot more bulk than an imaginary voice should. Time to put it on a twelve week weight loss program – and give yourself a guilt-free business future.