The Impact of Age on Leadership

1.1 Background Information

It has been difficult to derive a clear definition of the term ‘leadership’ due to the scarce debate surrounding its meaning. This problem has mainly stemmed from the fact that institutes and individuals have varying views on what constitutes as a leader. Many authors that have written on leadership (around 60% from 1910-1991) did not offer a definition altogether, illustrating the magnitude of ambiguity regarding the position (Rost, 1991). This vagueness of what leadership entails has given way for individual interpretation based on personal beliefs and general stereotypes including gender, racial and even social class biases. While extensive research has occurred in the areas above, there has been little discussion on how age affects leadership. Due to the current influx of young people into leadership positions as compared to the previous periods, the question of whether age impacts how well one performs as a leader has never been so relevant (Ernst, & Young, 2013; Ross, 2016; Inagaki, 2018).

Leadership entails a person’s ability to command or influence followers in lower positions to accept change and the reactions of the managers during the crisis (Northouse, 2018). Since the primary purpose of a leader is to supervise the employees working under him, there is a lot of consideration on the respect those staffs will accord him or her. Hence, many people may consider young leaders incapable of gaining full control of the staff members older than them. There have been some arguments that the young managers may struggle to gain respect from the junior staffs that are older than them due to lack of experience. The communication strategy expressed by a person in a leadership position is essential to their success. Besides, a leader should have the ability to think beyond the ordinary to initiate changes even when least expected in the firm (Sosik & Jung, 2018). Although a manager may have a bright idea, it is the leadership skill that will enable him or her to convince the junior staffs to accept those proposals and implement them in the places of work. The young managers may struggle to convince the older employees at lower ranks to change the way of doing their work, which they have practised for one or more decades. According to Sosik and Jung (2018), managers require individual brilliance to overcome such challenges and succeed in leadership positions.

The final area of management that has drawn a lot of debate regarding age in leadership is the reaction of the leaders during a crisis. According to Boerrigter (2015), the young people tend to be emotional, and they may fail to control their feelings when annoyed with some issues in the places of work. When a person becomes quite emotional, it is quite difficult for him to handle a delicate situation successfully. There may be a total mess in the organization when the leader falls incapable of handling a crisis. Experience in many cases come with age and old people may have some best ways of containing emotions. Boerrigter (2015) also says that the claim against the young people assuming leadership positions arise from their inability to control emotions and become angry and frustrated when their plans do not yield according to their expectations. This project seeks to establish if age has a considerable influence on the leadership effectiveness. It will assess the impact of age on the success of leaders by gathering the views of the stakeholders such as company staffs and management.

1.2 Significance of the Study

This research intends to add knowledge on the subject of young leadership because since time immemorial, the older generation has dominated the field because they enjoy privileges. The rate of young individuals assuming leadership positions has been slow due to the societal beliefs that the young people have numerous challenges to their management credentials. The community has not become comfortable with young leaders due to such imaginations. This study sought to prove that youths could also succeed in leadership despite their young age. It intends to show that age does not influence a person’s success in leadership.

1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The study seeks to find the impact of age on the success of leaders regarding taking control of the team and building relationship with the team members. It further intends to prove that the age difference does not play any role in determining the success of people in leadership positions.

1.3.1 Objectives of the Study

1. To examine if age is a factor that influence leadership effectiveness

2. To analyse the findings of the survey to establish the thoughts of the staffs on the age of their leaders about the success in those positions.

3. To prove through research that age does not influence the outcome of leaders.

4. To assess the views of the employees on the factors that influences the effectiveness of leaders if age does not fall among them.

1.3.2 Study Questions

1. How does age influence leadership effectiveness?

2. How do staffs compare the people in management regarding their age differences and their contribution to the success of the processes in which they oversee?

3. How do young leaders compare themselves to their fellows aged more years than themselves?

4. Are older employees ready to treat their younger leaders in the same way they treat those older than them?

1.4 Problem Statement

Consideration of age as a determining factor in leadership has taken centre stage in the discussions around the societies due to the earlier beliefs that young people cannot make good leaders (Sheninger, 2014). The arguments about age and leadership have relied on the claims that young people would overcome challenges associated with such duties (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). The researcher found it essential to analyse this issue due to the current influx of young leaders in both political and corporate leadership. The Price of Saudi Arabia and President of France are among the crop of young leaders that have assumed political offices (Peter, 2017). The business society has also welcomed youths to take leadership positions, and the success of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg among other multinational company managers have indicated that age does not influence the effectiveness of leaders (George, 2015). Thus, this study will research the area by seeking the views of staffs and management of businesses to find their views on the issues. The research aims to show that the effectiveness of leaders has no association with their respective ages.

1.5 Leadership Trends in Young Leadership

Emerging trends in leadership continue to crop up with much change noted in the political scene. Young people have shown political ambitions and gone ahead to become political luminaries at the local and international level. There in increasing number of young political leaders; for instance, at only 32 years old Saudi Arabia have a Crown Prince in Mohammed bin Salman. Mohammed bin Salman holds record as the youngest Crown Prince in the history of Saudi Arabia. At the helm of his leadership position, the prince has led the country in the right direction with innovations and ways of making the country a better place for its citizens. For example, the prince suggested reforms in the country’s politics by changing religious policies. This was a hard move to make given that it would lessen the political might of the country’s leadership. Nonetheless, the prince supported such changes to the relief of the Saudi. He lifted ban that prevented the female gender from driving automobiles and proposed further reforms that would increase the number of women in running organisations. The changes brought by Mohammed bin Salman shocked the nation on one hand but pleased the millenials on the other end. Across the borders to Canada, 43 years old Justin Trudeau is the country’s Prime Minister; the second youngest in history. Moreover, the young leader accented into the position after a decade of loss for the liberal party implying the society was ready for a younger leader (Murphy & Woolf, 2015). Just like the Crown Prince, Trudeau proposed modern policies with its foundation being in striking gender balance, environmental sanity, and giving immigrants a friendlier acceptance in Canada. These changes made the world embrace the leadership qualities of Canada’s PM that in turn raised his popularity score. A report on opinion poll carried by an American firm showed that the country’s preferred leadership quality in seen in Canadian PM at the expense of their own president Donald Trump (71 years old) (Heffer, 2017). The world has produced enough young leaders whose leadership skills have pleased the world. There are a host of young leaders such Sebastian Kurz, the Chancellor of Austria, who is only 31 years old. Besides, a young leader is at the helm of Italian leadership as the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, is another young leader (Peter, 2017).

Despite the vast emphasis on the political leaders, the young people have also gained more leadership positions in the corporations that they had a few decades ago (Ernst & Young, 2013). Particularly, the millennials have been successful in entrepreneurship where they have successfully started new entities and transformed them into multinational firms. The Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg innovated the social media site while he was still a student at Harvard University (George, 2015). Despite his age, the young entrepreneur has successfully led his innovation to become the world’s largest social site. Currently, Facebook is worth billions of dollars and its worth keeps on increasing (Beahm, 2012). Facebook only plays the role of an example of the current multimillion businesses initiated by young individuals and developed to their status under the leadership of those young people. It serves as a proof that age may not be a significant factor in determining the success of leaders. The corporate society has attracted young people in numerous managerial positions in the recent years (Ernst, & Young, 2013). The millennials are quite ambitious in studies, and they form the largest population with the highest academic qualifications. Since the majority of the old staffs in workplaces lack such credentials, these young people assume the leadership roles at the expense of their older colleagues. Many organizations continue to grow despite having the majority of their management constituted majorly of young people against the expectation of many.

One of the areas that have made the young leaders succeed in management is their eagerness to learn and know new ideas as opposed to the rigid-minded baby boomers. Most of the youthful managers are smart regarding research as they attempt to learn new ways of doing things (Sosik, & Jung, 2018). They believe in their ability to conquer the world and that gives them the motivation to make as many attempts as possible in every challenge they face so long as they get the answer for their problems (George, 2015). This factor has been quite essential in defining the lead characters in the modern world. The first qualification for leaders is the courage to overcome challenges. A person that does not have the agility to attempt a new venture is likely to fail in it. However, failure does not appear in the vocabulary of leaders as they gather the experience through those attempts to emerge stronger in the subsequent ones and succeed (Maranto, & Wolf, 2013). Thus, most organizations managed by the young leaders have achieved enormous success through numerous inventions that have revolutionized the markets.

1.6 Past Research

The on-going influx of young leaders is because the society is supporting this rise; especially in public leadership (Ernst, & Young, 2013). However, what leads the new shift in the young leadership paradigm is uncertain. The situation elicits debates; it is that young leaders could be better than older generations of leaders? Gilbert, Collins, and Brenner (1990) provide a wide explanation on the dimensions of young and older leadership that bring differences. When conducting their study, Gilbert et al. (1990) collected results of their survey among staff regarding their views about leaders (n = 1634). The questionnaires required the participants to rate leadership effectiveness on dimensions such as leaders’ ability to empower, to interact with them, and effort towards mission achievement (Gilbert et al., 1990).

When comparing young and older leaders, there as perception that people have such as older leaders being effective duty delegators. On the other hand, young leaders seem to be more attentive to details that would make workplace a better environment. As such, young and older leaders show striking differences in their preferred approaches (Gilbert et al., 1990). The research done by the authors contradicts the normal where older people are perceived to be better leaders. The research is not without limitation. To begin with, it was done almost two decades ago and today, much has changed. In the past young leadership was uncommon while today the world is embracing the concept. The study only had a 6% representation of young leadership (aged between 18-32 years old). The contradiction is even more pronounced because in the same study older leaders were 64% (aged 41 years and above) (Gilbert et al., 1990). Over 18 years is a long time and the effectiveness of young leadership must have changed considerably. This is seen in the many rising young leaders who influence the world. For example, Ernst and Young LLP (2013) report on young leadership showed that 87% of the youth are taking up responsibilities and moving into positions of management in the 2008-2013 periods. The observation by Ernest and Young is a testimony about the speedy rise of preference to young leadership.

Furthermore, Gilbert et al. (1990) aim of the study was to monitor staff perception, which might have been influenced by characteristics of demand. This brings into question, the validity and reliability of the results given that the subjects were sharing their views about their immediate supervisors (taken as leaders). Supervisors’ roles are quite different from the roles of a leader, which makes the research devoid in leadership discussions.

Boerrigter (2015) conducted a study on leadership effectiveness and age correlation regarding the behaviour and affective state of a leader. Boerrigter (2015) research based on the previous perception that age determines an individual’s way of handling relationship with others and the ability to get control of others. The study involved 405 participants in a Dutch-based organization operating in the public sector. The author classified the leadership behaviour as transactional and transformational. According to Boerrigter (2015), the transactional approach enables the leader to reward the staff members for good performance and punish them due to low performance. The survey revealed that old people might outperform their young colleagues in this type of leadership. The transformational method aims at accomplishing all the objectives of the organisation. In this approach, the management tries all means to ensure that the team achieves its mission. It is the leadership style mostly associated with young people who are aggressive enough to ensure that they break all the barriers to realise their goals (Maranto, & Wolf, 2013). Despite such small variance in leadership approach regarding age, the study failed to find a significant impact of age on leadership (Boerrigter, 2015). It found that each generation of people such as the baby boomers and millennials have varying approaches to ensure that they succeed in their managerial duties.

According to Rost (1991), leadership is a wide area that involves several factors making its clear definition difficult among the past scholars who have researched about it. It will be quite difficult to study the influence of age on the effectiveness of leaders without putting much consideration in particular areas. The main attributes of leadership that have attracted wide study include power, skills, influence, and traits (Yukl, 2013). The previous studies have also researched on factors such as change, teamwork, ethics, and development in leadership (Goetsch & Davis, 2014; Yukl, 2013). Hence, this research will concentrate on these few elements to find how age may shape the leader’s success in these respective areas.

1.6.1 Power, skills, influence, and traits

Power is an essential component of leadership regardless of the field in which the person leads despite much consideration of the political leadership as the one involving power (Goetsch & Davis, 2014; Yukl, 2013). Leaders should be people that control every situation where they are and attract sufficient respect from their subjects. The leading power will define the ease of convincing junior employees to perform the task delegated to them. Besides, it ensures that people in management positions can successfully influence junior employees to accept new changes in the environment. According to Sheninger (2014), the society believes that young people cannot assume enough control of the situation. Sheninger (2014) cites that people consider the youth to lack the power to control their age mates in lower positions or the subordinates in lower ranks. The current success of young leaders has proven the claims to be false as people such as Mark Zuckerberg have succeeded in management despite their young ages (George, 2015).

The skill possessed by a manager is essential in determining his or her success in leadership positions. A leader requires unique skills that will help in creating change in the working environment. According to Musgrove (2013), the community perceives people acquire skills in job places as they continue to work. Musgrove (2013) says that intellectual skills have never been a requirement for leadership, as the individuals can only become better leaders through experience. Such suggestions show that the community has regarded age to be an essential determinant of leadership considering the young people to lack the necessary knowledge to help them manage their teams successfully. It is impossible for a person to gather experience in management without accumulating many years in the field. Despite such thoughts, skills are sometimes inborn and unique among individuals. Age, therefore, does not determine the manner in which a person conducts his or her management duties. Young leaders both in the political and business fields have gained much success that even the majority of the old people may not achieve.

Behaviour has become a crucial component in management as it affects the way in which people communicate with each other. Communication is vital to the success of managers as it plays a significant role in building relationship among workers (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). Managers that listen to their juniors are likely to attain more success in their places of work as they will receive essential information from a variety of sources. Day et al. (2014) say that leaders should not just give commands to their juniors, but they should also try to receive the views of these staffs as they may have some useful ideas. Although managers may gain good knowledge to initiate innovation in workplaces, it is inadvisable to prevent the other workers in low ranks from contributing. The leader may listen to them and assess the viability of their suggestions before implementing them. A manager should be someone that rewards the team for success realized in the department or the entire organization and takes the blame for the failure experienced in the process. According to Day et al. (2014), the interpersonal relationship is a determinant in making one a successful leader. Poor leaders take all credit while they blame the junior workers. It is equally important to emphasise that behaviour of people may be inborn but rarely relies on age (Kumar, Adhish, & Deoki, 2014).

Trait is a significant determinant of an individual’s behaviour and may influence the kind of leadership practised by individuals (Ciulla, 2014)). People with bad traits are likely not to succeed in management, as they will display certain behaviours not pleasant to the juniors. For example, some individuals may like to practice corruption in their places of work where they demand bribes or sexual favours to promote the employees to senior positions. Ciulla (2014) says that it is quite demeaning for managers to possess such kinds of behaviour as they are likely to receive opposition in their workplaces paralysing all their missions. According to Ciulla (2014), leadership requires upright individuals that obey the ethical standards guarding the activities in the company so that they can relate well with other staffs and form teams that can work together towards the realisation of the goals of the company.

1.6.2 Leadership role in effective change implementation

Leaders should be responsible in championing change when they guide followers towards the achievement of the mission of an organisation (Goetsch, & Davis, 2014). The demands of the consumer are quite dynamic, and the organisations need to initiate constant innovations to remain relevant in the market. Besides, the rivalry in every industry has become quite stiff as new players venture into the market with new types of goods likeable to the consumers. Due to the immense competition and the changing demands of the clients, it is leaders’ responsibility to ensure organisations implement suggested changes to become successful. According to Sheninger (2014), managers should have visions for their companies and implement changes that will put their firms ahead of their rivals in the market. Sheninger (2014) further provides precaution to the leaders on the change implementation requirements as failure to involve the whole team may result in subsequent losses when everything backfires. Such projects require the managers must find unique skills of ensuring that all the staff members contribute towards the initiative and become ready to begin it. Due to such demands of leadership, it would be quite essential to find the role of age in its effectiveness. Old leaders might rely on experience to successfully execute the changes. The young managers might also possess some unique ways that enable them to control the team during the process with a lot of ease.

1.6.3 Teamwork and success in leadership

Hackman and Johnson (2013) recommend leaders to formulate teamwork in their organisations so that they get combined effort towards achieving the objectives of the company. Although managers may have innovative skills that they try to implement in the organisations, they are likely to fail in their missions if they do not receive backing from team members. The best way of encouraging teamwork in the workplaces is to allow from communication between the employees regardless of their positions (Goetsch, & Davis, 2014). Hackman and Johnson (2013) add that leaders who freely share their ideas with the junior staff members are likely to earn their respect and set them free to shares their views that target improving the working environment. Hackman and Johnson (2013) argue that free communication allows the workers to shift their motives towards focusing on the achieving the aims of the team rather than attaining individual success. Thus, leaders should encourage their juniors to embrace teamwork if they are to deliver in their respective positions.

1.6.4 Strategies of leadership development

Managers require continuous training to equip them with the competitive skills that will see them succeed in their positions and steer the firms towards attaining the set objectives. Organizations invest heavily in training and development not only for their leaders but also for all their employees. Such training is essential in elevating the standards of skills possessed by the staff members in every workplace. According to Day et al. (2014), companies may supplement their training services with outside seminars as such initiatives allow the employees to meet new trainers that will accord them with some unique knowledge necessary for the development of their leadership skills. Sheninger (2014) suggests that managers can acquire additional leadership skills through association with some of the successful colleagues through interactions.

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Defining Leadership

Tumultuous economic and financial challenges in the unpredictable business environment mean that organisations should be thoughtful about their engagements in a bid to remain competitive. Innovation in communication technology further provides an easy way to communicate with stakeholders across the globe. Competition increased at corporate levels due to new modalities of business interaction and communication (Friedman, 2007). As such, keeping businesses on track to manoeuvre through the not-so-friendly business surrounding means that leader must come up with ways of adding quality at reduced prices. Leadership effectiveness is therefore central to sustaining business models in the harsh economic environment (Cabeza-Erikson, Edwards, & van Brabant, 2008). Leaders control business operations towards goal achievement by developing innovative strategies. Moreover, they give employees motivation and morale to work towards achieving long-term and short-term goals. A good leader uses their skills to device efficient policies that drive organisation towards uncertain future. Through their manipulative abilities, they influence others to take an organisation to greater heights (Cocks, 2012).

Leadership is an area that has caught the interest of scholars attracted much attention due to its sensitivity in streamlining the workplace environment to deliver goals of a corporate body. People have put much emphasis on the kind of techniques displayed by those in top management positions, as they believe that leaders have the sole responsibilities of guiding their team members into the success that every firm needs. According to Rost (1991), scholars failed to provide a clear definition of leadership leading to massive ambiguity in what the term means. In this research, leadership refers to one’s ability to influence others to change behaviours, cultural tenets, and attitude (Ganta, & Manukonda, 2014). The influential ability of a person towards followers is also the basis of Northhouse (2009) definition of a leader. Influence comes from a person who gives followers clear direction and marshal group support to achieve collective responsibility of delivering organisational goals (Wasim, & Imran, 2010). To be an effective leader, one must be consistent, passionate, trustworthy, and visionary. Lack of effective leadership in an organisation means no change and no clear direction (Atkinson, 2015).

A leader brings change factors such as trust, the creation of organisational culture, and creation of learning environment. Trust is part of effective leadership because followers take on responsibilities of running operations as a leader plays oversight role (Lee at al., 2010). Followers who trust their leader, in a way, communicate good leadership. Followers would only trust a person they believe takes them in the right direction through action and word of mouth (Conchie, Taylor, & Charlton, 2011). A trustworthy relationship between a leader and followers builds confidence in all parties and improve the overall performance of an organisation. Another role of a leader is to shape a working culture based on employee relationship and trust with leaders. Skills of leadership possessed by a leader are vital in creating a positive working environment (Ionescu, 2014). When such a positive culture exists, it is easy to influence the behaviour of followers for improved performance of a business entity. Schein (2010) adds that a positive organisational culture gives employees a sense of belonging that inspires their long-term commitment to service. Finally, a leader should create a learning environment by rewarding and promoting workers to higher positions (Azzam, 2014). Through continuous learning, a leader inspires growth at all levels of an organisation. Both leaders should join continuous training programmes to help them be more effective in strategy execution (Freifeld, 2013). Failure to undertake more training, both leaders and employees would find themselves in skills obsolesce, which in turn lead to poor productivity. Will a leader enthusiastic about these change factors inspire an organisation regardless of age or experience? The next paragraph delves into leadership-age correlation according to views of past scholars.

According to Ernst and Young (2013), there has been little concentration on this correlation between age and success in leadership positions. Ross (2016) and Inagaki (2018) have also highlighted the need for research on how age influences the performance of people in such positions. It, therefore, remains an interesting idea to find if there are any correlations between leadership effectiveness and age as much of the information available indicates much belief that age defines the type of leadership style one adopts when running affairs of an organisation.

2.2 Leadership Styles and Effectiveness

As mentioned above, leadership style is a function of age; thus, for an informed discussion, this research factors in types of leadership. Transactional leadership’s ideals are coined from leaders’ and followers’ transactive behaviours undertake (McCleskey, 2014). According to Bass (1990), the transaction between them comes