Generations, Headlines, And The Real Story

Speaker 0:52

Hi, and welcome to The Fulfilled Leader. In the last two weeks, I've had conversations with people about millennials at work, and Gen X at work, and Gen Z at work, and hearing that there's lots of stories about different generations struggling. I'm guessing you might have seen the headlines. Millennials are feeling the burnout. There's 11 reasons Gen X don't want to work anymore. My Instagram feed is full of people talking about these problems, and one report I read described this period as an anti-work period. But alongside this, I'm coaching wonderful people who are navigating this challenging landscape and finding joy and fulfillment at work and in their careers. They would also say it's not necessarily easy, but there are definitely challenging times at work, but it's not the whole story. So I've become more curious about what is happening, and in this episode, I want to share my own view, and also some slightly controversial approaches about how to navigate it. And spoiler alert, it's really down to us about how we take charge of our career So what do I see happening?

Burnout, Fear, And Always On Culture

Speaker 2:22

Firstly, as you know, there are so many factors that are contributing to this, and I want this to be a podcast about what we can do about it, not a list of depressing factors. But I think some context is helpful. Let's start with tiredness. I, I think it's fair to say that many, many people are feeling tired. We see lots of studies that say burnout rate's really high, and those without burnout are trying to work out how to make their finances work whilst they manage caring responsibilities and still have time for themselves. Since COVID, our ever-on culture has continued to create pain, and I'm, I'm not sure we've talked enough about this in society, the long-term impact of COVID on our working patterns. And many organizations have mandated that people go back to the office, but they're still expected to be online in evenings and weekend. And even if they're not expected to do that, because there's quite a bit of fear around job security, people are on. They're wanting to show willing. Social media's not helping. I recently took a two-week break from my email and also Instagram and LinkedIn, and I was quite surprised by how I did not miss it. When I came back, I was really curious about how I would feel. But as soon as I was back on Instagram, I felt that rush, that kind of need to see everything, and even that fear of missing out, of FOMO, and I'm wondering what this is doing to all of us. What is it triggering? I also

Broken Workplaces And A Meaning Crisis

Speaker 4:03

think our workplaces are quite broken. Working hours and pressure seems to be increasing, and to be honest, I thought this wasn't possible. I've been wondering for years when we would stop seeing increased pressure in jobs, but it still seems to be increasing. And as a friend recently shared about Gen X women, there's a lot of disillusionment and frustration and even rumblings of generational rebellion because workplaces are not working for many, and they're thinking about an exit Managers and leaders are under enormous pressure, and this can lead to them being derailed. Many are burnt out or disengaged and may be struggling to show empathy to themselves even, and of course, to others. And in some cases, this is leading to challenging behavior. It also means that they don't have enough time to catch up, to support colleagues, to have career conversations, and so people are feeling more and more lost and finding it hard to connect in with their purpose. And in fact, I heard recently this term that we're in a meaning crisis. Vanessa Ilostey and Vanessa Tio shared about this in their Career Transitions podcast, and I'm gonna share a link in the show notes 'cause it's a fantastic episode talking about what's happening in the workplace at the moment We've also seen the impact of the cost of living crisis we're in, and that is also creating uncertainty in the job market. And so people are staying longer in their jobs. Gartner created a phrase in 2026 called regrettable retention, where employees stay because they're concerned about getting another job. And this is having two impacts. Firstly, on them, they're staying and they're not very happy in their job. Maybe their values are compromised, maybe they don't like the organization, they need a change. And it's, there's an impact on other people in the organization because there's less movement, there's fewer vacancies, fewer opportunities for promotion I also see a bit of a fear about the future. This has two impacts also. There's a drive to make sure that I'm doing a really good job because I don't want to risk anything around my performance, so I'm gonna work harder and harder. And there's a personal impact. Because of this pressure, people might be more triggered, they may be doubting themselves, wondering if they're any good, and so there are increased levels of self-doubt. Now, notice I haven't yet mentioned climate change, global instability, AI, and an uncertain idea about what careers look like in the future. But let's just leave them there and go on to think about what can we do about it?

Integrity, Identity, And Cultural Pressure

Speaker 6:56

Our identities are often tied up with work. This has been so true for me. Work is a central part of who I am, and there's something in our modern culture, I think, that's created so much status around work. It's so important for how we feel, and often I think if we choose to think about doing something differently, we're questioned by others. They might question a choice to leave corporate life, for example, or a choice not to go for promotion even when we don't want to. And this is so personal. Each person, each one of us has our own journey with what really matters for us in our career. And in order for us to be happy at work, we need to tune in to what really matters for us and not what the culture is telling is right for us. One of the best books I've read in the last five years, and I've talked about it before, is Martha Beck's book, The Way of Integrity. It sits next to my desk, and I'm recommending it all the time. She takes us on a journey to think about how can we find our own integrity and how can we live by that, and I'm curious about how we make sure we do that in our working lives. And I think that might be part of what we need to do in order to navigate this period. Because there is so much noise in the system about what organizations are like, what jobs are like, what careers are like, we need to think about what really matters for us and make choices there. And sure, there are going to be some compromises. There are compromises everywhere, and especially at the moment, I think we might need to be honest about the compromises we might need to make to be more true to ourselves and look for ways to move forward, to move out of this pain. Let me explain a bit about what I mean. Most of us need to work. We need to earn a living to support ourselves and our families, but we can find ourselves on a career path or a journey that's no longer serving us, and it can feel really hard to change this. But even if it's really hard, I think it's really important that we look at those hard choices and work out what's going to be right for us. And part

Why Organisations Will Not Save You

Speaker 9:14

of the reason I believe this is because I hold a very cynical view about organizations. Now, I've spent my entire career supporting people in organizations, and I hope that organizations will always be a good place. But I have seen time and time and time again that when push comes to shove, most, if not all organizations, will make decisions based on the needs of their shareholders first, clients second, and employees third. And this is a painful reality that we live in. What this means is that unless we take responsibility for our career and the decisions that we're making about our career, we're at risk of being at the mercy of an organizational decision that we didn't see coming and that we don't want. And it happens in so many ways. Our wonderful boss leaves and is replaced by someone we don't get on with. A corporate restructure takes out a whole division, including people who are really high performers. A market downturn leads to layoffs. So if we're miserable at work and we don't make choices to make changes that are good for us, we risk decisions being made for us. And so I wonder, isn't it better to make sure that we're in the driving seat of our career, making decisions for us and our families, and living a life of integrity, even if this might involve compromises? Because complaining and being unhappy is mostly impacting us negatively. It's not really having an impact on the wider organization And so this is where I've come to in my thinking, that firstly, we have to take responsibility for our experience at work. Even in the most toxic organizations, it's down to us how we experience it and how we take back our feeling of agency. If we want to have a happy and fulfilling career, we need to be able to put ourselves back in charge, to spend time identifying what our path of integrity is. To be a bit blunt, if we stay in the victim mode, it's very hard to make change. We need to come back in, take the choices back, and find the courage to take them. I have two ways of framing this, which I share with clients,

The Four Choices To Move Forward

Speaker 11:46

and thought it would be helpful to share here. The first is a model around the choices we have, and the second is about how we approach those choices. And these choices are a bit stark, so let me share them here. So the four choices are, we can stay and struggle and complain, and this is a genuine choice as long as we see it that way. We can think, "Oh, there's nothing I can do about it," but I also, you know, think it's miserable and I'm just gonna stay and put up with it, basically. The second choice is that we can stay and work out what we can change, and there's two places that we can do this. One is internal. I can change my attitude. I can find a way to accept the situation and stop struggling. Or it might be external. I can explore ways to reduce my workload, to say no, to work differently with my team, and so on. Option three is we can stay and negotiate. We can work on internal relationships. We can look at influence to see what we can change. I worked with a person who was absolutely convinced she needed to leave her job, and I encouraged her just to have a conversation with her boss, and within a week, her role had been redesigned in a way that she absolutely loved. This happened quite a few years ago now Or we can leave. In the current job market, this is quite a hard choice, I accept that, and this can often be where we have to make compromises. We might need to look at the radical options that include lower salary, changes in lifestyle, different location, different career. But in the interest of being happier and more fulfilled at work, and maybe then being happier in our whole lives, maybe those choices are worth it. I know these are hard options. None of this is easy, and our work environment isn't helping. But it's down to us to see what small things we can do to create less angst. So just to repeat them, the four choices are, one, stay, two, stay and change myself, three, stay and influence others, and four, leave Once we've looked at our choices, there's another framing which I also find helpful, and you may already be familiar with this, Stephen Covey's Circle of Influence, Control, and Concern, and this comes from his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. His idea

Covey’s Circles For Hard Situations

Speaker 14:19

is that we have three circles sitting within each other. On the outer circle, we have a circle of concern, which is the full range of things that you care about and are curious about, that you see in the world and in your work. Within this circle, there's a circle of influence. These are areas that we can have some impact on, and within that circle at the center is the circle of control. This is the areas that we have direct control on. And when we are struggling with work, and we've got these choices to make, we can look at where our struggle sits and look for ways to handle our struggle using this framework. So for example, if my boss is really difficult to work with, what are my options? If we start right in the middle with the circle of control, the only thing I actually have control over here is my reaction and my choices. I can find ways to be less triggered. I can talk to mentors and seniors to explore options, or at the extreme, I can decide to leave. I can play with the ways that I talk to my boss and see whether something changes. But really it's down to me in the control to think about how I manage myself. If we move out to the circle of influence, this is where we think about, well, how do I influence my boss? Maybe I need to stand in their shoes and see what's going on. Maybe I can look for ways to communicate differently with them. Maybe I need to be clearer with them about my boundaries, what is and isn't possible. Maybe also look to others who can support me in this, who can help influence, or others I can gain support from, for example, colleagues in my team And then finally moving out to the circle of concern. So these are things I can't control or I can't influence, and here it's mostly about letting go. This can be really hard, but often we are holding onto something, chewing it over in our minds, complaining to everybody who will listen to us, and actually we really can't do anything about it. And that kind of negativity sitting around us isn't serving us well. So if I can't control or influence my boss, then I need to only look for my own concerns. I, I can't change their behavior, I can only change my own mind. I know this is really hard, but sometimes seeing that I can't do anything can actually release us from trying and take some pressure off us. Of course, there are big examples of things that we could put in the cl- circle of concern. At the moment, the global events, the worry about AI, and those things that we actually are looking at that concern us but we can't control or influence are all there as well, and maybe it would serve us well to let them go There are lots of other things that we can do to help during these times.

Values, Community, And Supporting Others

Speaker 17:10

You can work with your values and identify which of these might be being compromised at the moment and see what your choices are. I have a free values assessment which you can access when you sign up to my newsletter. There's a link in the show notes for this. You can create or join a support group. Community really helps when we're struggling. One key aspect, though, of community is to not get stuck in complaining. Maybe allow five or 10 minutes of complaining, but then move into creative solutioning, looking for ways that you can help each other to solve the problem. And also in that space, there's room for a lot of kindness. We can also look at how psychological safety is playing out in your team and the people you're working with. And in the next episode of the podcast, Helen Sanderson will be joining me. She has a new book coming out about psychological safety, and I really encourage you to listen to this because there'll be clues there about how we can support ourselves and others. And finally, you can think about how to support those around you who are struggling. If you're a leader, look around you. What can you do? As a colleague, who could you take for coffee, in-person or virtual, to offer some support? We live in challenging times, and I don't believe that any specific generation is struggling. I think it's hard for many in different ways. But I

Final Takeaways On Career Control

Speaker 18:39

do believe that together we can help each other, and that if we make the decision to take back the control of our career, to look at what our choices are, and to make choices that are good for us and for good for the people around us, then we can change our experience of work.