Last year’s comedy, The Intern, features Robert De Niro as a retiree who can’t stay retired. He decides to return to the workplace as a “senior” intern, assisting a start-up CEO, played by Anne Hathaway. Here’s a great clip from the film that portrays the millennial Hathaway seeking assurance from De Niro as she collects herself prior to a big meeting. Despite her success up to that point, she still wants his perspective and wisdom on how to lead better.
If you are a leader who is planning for tomorrow, you must have a game plan for tomorrow’s leaders. Simple math dictates this. Baby boomer leaders are retiring. Subsequent generations have lower birth rates. In the coming years, your talent pool of potential leaders will shrink. To be ready, you must have a strategic vision for developing leaders from the group who now makes up the largest part of the workforce – millennials.
The good news? Millennials want to lead. And, like Anne Hathaway’s CEO character, they want to be coached to lead better. The 2015 Hartford Millennial Leadership Survey found that nearly 70% of millennials aspire to be leaders sometime in the next five years. And the #1 training they seek from their employer is in Leadership Skills.
It helps to understand their paradigms on leadership:
• Millennials view leadership as democratic, rather than authoritative.
• Millennials hope to create a collaborative workplace environment.
• Millennials want to inspire followers with a purpose/mission.
• Millennials associate soft skills with leadership success.
• Millennials desire work-life balance as they lead.
You will have to help millennials combine these ideals with what you know to be true about effective leadership.  Consider teaching the following as a part of your millennial leadership lesson plan:
1) Be willing to own the tough decision. Teamwork and collaboration are valuable, but great leaders must, at some point, make and stand behind difficult decisions. One of my coaches, Jerry Leachman, says it succinctly: “Winners take responsibility; losers blame others.”
2) Build teams and networks through humility. Millennials can use practice in such soft skills as saying “please” and “thank you.”  By requesting help and expressing gratitude, the millennial leader will demonstrate that they need others to help them get things done. Evan Baehr, a millennial friend of mine and Cofounder of Able Lending, provides 7 great examples of saying “thank you” in this article from Harvard Business Review.
3) Sacrifice is part of the gig. Eventbrite recently published findings showing 78% of millennials would rather spend money on experiences than things. They don’t like saying “no” to social events. The importance that millennials place on work-life balance may be fueled by FOMO — fear of missing out. Good leaders learn that they cannot say “yes” to everything and still lead effectively.
4) Look them in the eye. Poor communication is always a source of the grit that inhibits teamwork. Millennials excel in communications that don’t require them to be fully present and interact with others face-to-face. Successful leaders from this generation will be those who can influence and interact with others using their full presence. And don’t forget to remind them that multitasking is a myth!
5) Results matter.  Unlike your childhood soccer team where everybody got the same trophy just for showing up to practice each week, the world actually does keep score. Winners get rewarded, and losers get punished. That may sound harsh, but it is ultimately true, whether in a public company or a community non-profit. 
Once you put your curriculum together, remember that millennials prefer to learn experientially rather than in the classroom. Look for projects that they can lead with your coaching. Then:
1) Agree on the leadership learning the two of you want before starting the project.
2) Establish regular conversation for feedback and reflection during the project.
3) Review the leadership lessons that the millennial has gleaned at project completion.
For more ideas on designing simple training programs, read this post on DIY Leadership Training.
Great leaders leave a legacy of more great leaders. What are you doing today to develop the leaders you will need tomorrow?