NBOA President and CEO
Look around your independent school, and you’re almost guaranteed to see several generations of faculty and staff working side by side. For the first time in history, five generations, from the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers to Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z, are represented in America’s workforce. Whether or not you identify with the stereotypes and misconceptions associated with your generation, generational friction is bound to surface from time to time, be it in communication, technology or other workplace expectations.
That’s why I invited Megan Gerhardt, Ph.D., to the Net Assets Podcast. Gerhardt is no stranger to NBOA. The author of "Gentelligence: The Revolutionary Approach to Leading an Intergenerational Workforce," Gerhardt previously led a Silver Series NBOA webinar and spoke at our staff retreat last summer in Chicago. She will also be a keynote speaker at the 2027 NBOA Annual Meeting, February 21-24 in Dallas. Her work has helped many organizations rethink generational differences, not as challenges to overcome, but as opportunities to build stronger teams. I hope our conversation offers ideas you can put to work at your school, too.
The following is an edited excerpt of the Net Assets Podcast episode. You can listen to the full episode here.
Jeff Shields: Generational labels, like Gen X or Gen Z, can be useful as shorthand, but they can also flatten people into stereotypes or caricatures. What are some of the danger zones leaders should avoid when they’re trying to build stronger multigenerational teams?
Megan Gerhardt: My first recommendation is to step away from generational infographics. I have a visceral reaction to generational infographics because they try to make something simple that is actually very complex. We want a chart that tells us, “Oh, Millennials, all 80 million of them, want this.” Obviously, that’s not true.
If we saw an infographic claiming that all women want the same thing, or that everyone of a particular religion thinks the same way, we’d immediately question it. Yet we continue to see attempts to reduce generations, which are nuanced and complicated, into these very simple categories. When that happens, people disengage. They say, “This is pop psychology. This is like a horoscope. This is silly.” Or they look at it and think, “That’s not me, and that’s not a lot of the people around my age.”
I might better understand why you view loyalty, transparency or success differently than I do if I understand the context in which you grew up and started your career.
So I would avoid any attempt to reduce someone to their generation. Not only do we not want to stereotype, but we want to make room for the the many layers of people's identities.
Join Your Peers at the 2027 NBOA Annual Meeting
Hear more from Megan Gerhardt at her keynote during the 2027 NBOA Annual Meeting, February 21–24 in Dallas, Texas. She’ll be “Unlocking Gentelligence®” and discussing how to turn generational differences into an organizational strength. Learn more about next year's conference and register.
At the same time, I don't think we throw the baby out with the bathwater, because to me, generations are a lens for understanding. I might better understand why you view loyalty, transparency or success differently than I do if I understand the context in which you grew up and started your career.
I think of generations as a kind of culture. Different generations may have different norms, language and beliefs, but that doesn’t mean everyone within a generation is the same. The goal isn’t to use generations to make assumptions. It’s to use them to spark curiosity. You may be a Baby Boomer, but you’re also the oldest of seven children and grew up on a farm in Texas. Your generation is one layer of your experience, but there are many other layers that shape your perspective. That curiosity is where we need to start.
Shields: What does a "gentelligent" leader actually do? How can they seek out those differences as a source of insight?
Gerhardt: I think it all comes down to this: The research tells us that generational differences can either help you or hurt you, like any other kind of difference in an organization.
Let’s examine a climate or culture that is age-inclusive. That means if we surveyed your people and asked, “Is your age a hindrance to development, learning, having an opinion, advancement or being hired?” people would say no. Or even better, they’d say, “Actually, it’s an asset. It’s valued here.”
When you put resources into developing staff, for example, do you consider if that means the same thing to you as it does to a 22-year-old right out of school?
We identified four practices of a gentelligent leader, and the first practice is identifying assumptions. Not only are we examining any biases we may have, but we’re considering generational differences when we make decisions. When you put resources into developing staff, for example, do you consider if that means the same thing to you as it does to a 22-year-old right out of school?
Engaging Today's Multi-Generational Workforce
On November 11, respected HR leaders Dawn K. Ijiri at La Pietra and Rene Michelle Reynolds at St. Anne’s Episcopal will explore the underpinnings of generational behaviors and develop strategies to cultivate understanding and collegiality in the independent school workplace.
Lear more and register – free to NBOA member schools.
For one generation, staff development might mean a formal performance review and a 30-minute conversation with their supervisor. For someone entering today’s workplace, employee development might feel much more relational: My supervisor knows me as a person, and they understand my values and what motivates me.
Imagine that I, as your supervisor, invite you for to a meeting and say, “We’re committed to developing our people.” You show up expecting coffee and conversation, and I show up with a performance management form. We’re coming to the same meeting with two completely different ideas of what’s supposed to happen.
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There is a lot more to this than we can get into now. But to start, here are some questions to ask yourself:
- How can we replace “us versus them” with “us plus them” across generations?
- As a leader, how am I modeling curiosity and openness from different perspectives?
- When we say, “We’ve always done it this way,” are we still open to hearing new approaches?
I think the more that becomes part of your culture, the better. To put it in school terms, every generation should be allowed to both teach and learn. That’s what it’s all about.
Shields: It sounds so easy when you frame it that way, but we know it’s not. It takes real intentionality to tap into where someone else might be coming from. I love the example of one person thinking they’re meeting for a cup of coffee while the supervisor walks in with a performance management form. They’re showing up to the same meeting with two completely different expectations. That’s one I’m going to remember.
Jeffrey Shields, FASAE, CAE
NBOA President and CEO
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