There was a question I asked, which caused him pause. I asked, “how can you call yourself a leader unless you have followers?” The fact of the matter is…Gen Y comprises 79.5 million potential followers. After a mild debate about all of that, the reporter felt a need to “up the ante” and, obviously frustrated, challenged me about “helicopter parents” (parents who hover over and around their children). He specifically wanted to know if I agreed with parents calling their children’s boss about issues, etc.

To answer his question I first told him a quick story. My mother is now 86 years old. While she has never imposed herself in my work life, she has for all of her 86 years done what she wants to do…..in spite of any of her children’s objections. There were times in my life (and my siblings’) that she did things we did not appreciate. However, and I mean this respectfully and lovingly, we could have no sooner stopped her from doing what she wanted to do than I could jump to the moon. She did what she thought she should do, when she thought she should do it. The reporter then admitted to me that his was a similar experience.

My question then was….why judge the Gen Y employee negatively for an action committed by their parent? Who is to say the Gen Y employee wanted the call made? Isn’t it just as likely the Gen Y employee is mortified and embarrassed? Why are we judging Gen Y differently that we judge ourselves? Truth be told, the situation described is the parent’s issue, not automatically a weakness of the Gen Y employee.

While I am not sure we had a “Gen Y convert” when the call ended, I am sure he thought a bit differently about the subject.