The Marketing Academy founder has called for a new leadership playbook so that younger generations don’t repeat the mistakes of older cohorts and offered sage advice to a packed audience at the Cairns Crocodiles, presented by Pinterest, conference.
Shackell, widely regarded as one of the most influential and inspiring leaders in the industry, whose Marketing Academy scholarships have helped develop thousands of marketers and CMOs, said that organisations are ruling through management rather the leadership.
This “archaic” command and control leadership style has been handed down by older generations – primarily Baby Boomers and Gen X – and stifles and suppresses younger generations from fully achieving their potential.
“Great leaders, inspire, enable, empower and develop people to do the things for themselves. And that’s about freedom,” she said.
“Whereas managers get people to perform by telling them what they need to do, telling them how to do it, telling them the budget they’ve got, telling them timescales they’ve got, and making sure that they’ve got everything they need to do that. It’s very much about control.
“We need more leadership…which often gets mistaken for management. Some people think leadership is a job title, a position in the hierarchy and is about managing team people.
“No, it’s not. Every single person in this room has the capability today to choose to be a superb leader, no matter where you sit in the hierarchy, no matter whether you manage anybody within your team. If you have influence over anyone in your life, you’re already leading. It’s a choice; it’s not a job title.”
Shackell points out that by the end of this year, 52 per cent of leaders will be Gen Y, and there are now more Gen Z aged workers than Baby Boomers.
This requires a fresh approach to leadership because younger workers have different needs and expectations about workplaces.
“[Younger workers] want to be sitting in Bali with a laptop in a cafe, and these are the things that they’re driven by. They want well being, they want meaning, they want purpose and they want flexibility.
She points out that older employees from different generations might not appreciate how working habits are evolving, and that “every generation has an issue with the next generation beneath them”, by perceiving them as entitled, lazy, unadaptable and other common workplace stereotypes.
Shackell’s top tips
Shackell offered advice for all generations that will help them improve their leadership skills.
This includes demonstrating empathy by imagining what it is like to “walk in the shoes” of colleagues irrespective of their age and generation.
She also recommends showing more appreciation to colleagues beyond saying “thanks”, listening more, reverse mentoring and board representation, and delegating tasks you are not good at to others.
“We’re really good at shining a light on the things we do badly. We’re not very good at shining a light on the things that people do well. So show real appreciation,” she said.
“Also seek to give, not get. We are hardwired to get shit; hardwired to get our bosses to give us promotions, get our customers to give us more business, get us to our teams to work harder and faster and sharper with less resources.
“What you need to do is you need to flip the word get and to give, because you can’t control what you get, but you sure can control what you give.”
‘It’s not your employer’s job to promote you’
She also offered tips for younger generations, such as “chill out a bit more”.
“You are seriously not going to get promoted every six months and get a pay rise every three months. You’re going to be working for far longer than we are,” Shackell said.
She said that Gen Z and Gen Y staff would benefit by being more honest and open about providing feedback to superiors, and more realistic about job promotions.
“It is not your employer’s job to promote you. It is your job to be promotable,” she said. “The only thing that our employers need to do for us is to pay us a good wage for a fairly good job. That’s it. Everything else is discretionary.
“You can’t get frustrated if you’re not getting promoted, you either change something about it, or leave. That’s your choice. Take ownership and seek responsibility.”
Shackell’s top advice for Gen X is to become shining role models of courage, collaboration, inclusion, flexibility and empathy.
“There is a huge need to have older, more experienced people within any business. We can become the mentors, the champions, the supporters, but we’ve got to enable the talent that’s coming through underneath us to absolutely shine.
“We cannot continue to shape leaders in the shape of the leaders who led us. We need a paradigm shift. We need a new playbook.
Shackell’s closing salvo for the marketing, media and advertising industry is that it can impact every single human being on this planet, 8 billion people, to influence the system.
“We can help people make their decisions. We can challenge and change their behaviours. We can inspire them to buy something, to do something, be something, experience something. That is our gift and, for me, means that our industry is the leadership industry. We can change lives. We can change the world, but the intent behind it has to be good.”
