What does Gen X Have to Offer in Digital Transformation Leadership?

I'm not the first to compare Game of Thrones to the technology ecosystem. What was vaguely true at the time of the show's original broadcast is becoming even more true in current events lately. One of our members asked me the other day:

What does Gen X have to offer in digital transformation leadership?

I'm not a big fan of typecasting generations in the workplace. It's a way of presenting catchy demographic data insight that sells well because we like complex data to be smoothed out so we can make it actionable and saleable. Using generational demographic data for horizon scanning and foresight is fun, but the minute we apply it broadly, it starts to show holes. Presuming, for example, that "digital native" Millenials are better at using tech has proven false. This insight matches my own lived experience as a GenX professor tech nerd who went overboard with my digital teaching strategy and confused the heck out of my students at moments who had as much trouble with it as my colleagues did.

However, I did come up with something. Gen X is the Tyrion Lannister of transformational leadership.

Full disclosure: I also used Tyrion to describe a good scrum master in Agile training; he is helpful for many things, and as the likable character he is, he opens our imagination a little and allows us to see things differently. Which is precisely the role he plays within the fictional world he inhabits. Tyrion is a character who travels between worlds. Not quite like people do in science fiction, but in the way of literary devices. Like the Fool in Shakespeare, the Greek chorus in drama, the Maqamat-of-Alhariri in Arabic verse, or the Tenali Raman in Indian folklore. R2D2 and C3P0 are like this, and Deadpool is too. They are not the main characters. They are intermediaries, bridges between worlds. As a result, they seem to develop the same tactics and techniques: humor, feigning madness, and deploying "irenic ambiguity," or allowing some ambiguous allegiances to hide their true intent to maximize outcomes for themselves. Unencumbered by crowns and kingdoms, they have no true loyalty to one or the other; they are surviving but also bring wisdom and insight to those they serve authentically. While they may be difficult to pin down, they "always pay their debts." (Except, as in King Lear, they are hung, but I digress. Let's stick to comedy for now.)

Here is where some generational demographic data seems to apply. Gen X has been slow to ascend to leadership because the generation before them stayed in the game longer, and the generation beneath them has started to seem hipper and cooler because we idolize youth. Consequently, their ability to gain a leadership role has forced them into lower-value functions. The kind of soft-skill leadership that perhaps should be better estimated for its ability to bring about better human transformations. The organizing principle of Singular XQ is that you can't take a top-down approach to digital transformation. Failed digital transformations aren't a business problem. They are a human problem. Human transformations lead to better business transformations, even as our blind Kings seem inured to that fact.

As such, we have strong evidence that Gen X fills those gaps. Gen X is far more likely to mentor their employees and invest in developing their team, and this matches the noted strong desire of Gen Y and Millenials to be mentored. I'm skeptical that this generation wants to be mentored more than others; my instinct is that as on-the-job training diminished after the 60s, mentorship as an idea was weakened. Either way, my lived experience matches this. Millennials and now Gen Y seek role models to navigate the increasing lack of psychological safety in the workplace in these volatile times.

It's a perfect illustration of what anthropologist Victor Turner defined as liminality. The ability to be a liminal figure and travel between worlds, as it were, is especially key now that we are firmly in the category that he defined so well: a society in transition. "Betwixt and Between."

It seems the perfect moment to mention that joining our community at Singular XQ provides mentorship opportunities. We haven't platformed the experience (see above digital natives don't manage platforms and user credentials better than the rest of us.) We use virtual tools to enable it to happen globally but take a relational approach to developing the program. It's dehumanizing when it tries desperately hard to be done "at scale."

We do it one-on-one on real projects that impact the real world. Solving problems that matter to all of us.

I didn't mean to turn this into an advertisement but stay tuned. Our mentorship opportunities will become more abundant soon.

Sign up. For now, we don't offer much difference between paid and free, but if you can spare it, signing up for paid helps us meet our mission, including supporting people with employment barriers.