At a recent Creative Energy Options, Inc (CEO) teambuilding workshop for the senior management team of a successful product manufacturing business, the one woman from the group was asked how it felt to be the only woman on the team. Her response was understandable. "I just try to be one of the guys!" The discussion that followed was both enlightening and hopeful. The workshop leader responded with "that's not possible because you are NOT one of the guys!" The rest of her male colleagues followed with great sensitivity in expressing concern because what they really needed was for her to be herself. The bottom-line was that she (as a woman) brought a greater depth to the leadership meetings and discussions. The men of the group believed that the ultimate decision-making process was much better with the addition of her insight and perceptions.

    Is there really a glass ceiling that is preventing women from moving up the corporate ladder? The answer is "only if we choose to think so." The choice men and women have is whether women should be part of the "melting pot approach" that our gender differences should somehow automatically assimilate into the leadership characteristics that male counterparts display; or that men and women can recognize and embrace these complimentary essential differences in our world today.

    It is time to re-think the supposed barriers that women face in the corporate world. Yes, there are not enough women in leadership roles. Yes women tend to make less money then their male counterparts. What has changed over the last fifty years when women began to work outside the home? It is no longer relevant to debate whether women are able to do the job. Scholarly research has proven (once and for all) that there is no significant difference in job productivity between men and women. What is relevant? The answer is that gender differences enrich the corporate environment and it is time to understand and celebrate these differences.

    Say goodbye to Alfred Sloan and Lee Iacocca. Move over Peter Drucker and Jack Welch.

    While these titans of business represented the best wisdom of their time, the leadership style of the future may see them as mere memories of a lesser past. In their place, the world of tomorrow seems destined to embrace a new movement in corporate and political management: Millennial Leadership.

    Millennials, loosely defined, are the generation born between 1980 and 2000. Also known as "Generation Y" or "The Internet Generation", they have grown up in a rapidly changing world, experiencing everything from the stock market boom to the Enron debacle to the birth of the iPod. In the midst of a technology renaissance and the shadow of 9/11, they stand poised to inherit a world in dire need of a fresh style of leadership.

    Enter Millennial Leadership.

    In a recent speech, McKinsey Managing Director Ian Davis identified the five biggest issues on CEOs' minds: technology, the people impact of globalization, the challenge of building organizational capacity, the role of business in society, and how to balance growth with risk. All of these obstacles point to one central culprit troubling leaders today: increasing complexity.

    Ask any executive if their job is more or less complex than the one their predecessor filled, and you're almost guaranteed to get an exasperated chuckle. The key focus of Millennial Leaders, then, is finding a way to cope with-and if possible, take advantage of-this complexity.

    Take climate change, for instance. For years, corporate America has seen global warming crusaders and carbon regulations as a threat. In 2005, Jeffrey Immelt embraced this paradigm shift and proudly trumpeted "ecomagination", General Electric's new environmentally-friendly initiative. Today, GE is well on its way to double investments in R&D, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and most impressive, increase revenues with cleaner technology.

    Jeffrey Immelt is only one of a growing group of role models for Millennial Leaders. Immelt joins the company of visionaries like Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, and Bill George of Medtronic. What do these superstars have in common?

    Perhaps the best conclusion comes from a recent article on the dynamic CEO of eBay, "Meg Whitman leads by not leading, bosses by not bossing, and manages by not managing."

    In other words, Millennial Leadership is about empowering people to reach a shared vision. Today's executives are realizing that the increasing complexity they face makes it impossible for them to control all aspects of an organization, let alone see all problems and threats like climate change and disruptive technologies. Instead, they must build a continually adapting organization with leaders at all levels.

    In some ways, Millennial Leaders are saying that Henry Ford and Sam Walton were right all along. Develop a vision that your employees feel in their heart, give them a sense of ownership and pride in the organization, help them become better leaders than you, and watch as they exceed your wildest expectations.

    When Immelt and his colleagues pass the torch to the next generation, it will be a momentous step forward in the history of leadership, as the millennials take the reins. Trust me, I'm one of them.

    Imagine a team of experts spending 14 months studying a rare Greek marble statue dating back to the 6th Century BC in order to verify its authenticity. Now imagine that after this team confirms the statues authenticity they learn that it is a fake.

    This frustrating experience marks the beginning of the book Blink, and is the true story of the J. Paul Getty Museum in California and its lengthy quest to cautiously analyze the artifact to assure it was real. Samples of the rare statute were examined by electron microscope, electron microprobe, mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence. Geologist verified it dated to the correct time in history and was authentic. So, it goes on display with marketing flash and splash receiving glowing reviews.

    Shortly thereafter, a few art historians and experts on Greek sculpture noted, "it just didn't look right". It was in that instant, or blink of an eye, a hunch said something just wasn't right. So, the statue was packed up, shipped back to Greece and studied at a symposium. The conclusion from the art historians, who had an intuitive feeling that some thing was amiss, was that the statue was forged in the 1980's and aged to pass the scientific tests.

    Blink is about those first few seconds when we thin-slice information and form an opinion.

    The decision making that causes our brain wires to form conclusions is called the adaptive unconscious and Gladwell cites a multitude of examples of how this happens. The quick read of vignettes of instant decisions, some good, some not so good, encourages us to stop and ponder the decisions we have made in the blink of an eye. Pulling from the study of neuroscience and psychology Blink changes the way you understand every decision you make.

    Some examples are more in depth than others. They range from a lengthy review of analyzing war game results and how decisions were made, to a quick example of how we buy more jam when given fewer choices. In a study that was cited, 30 percent of people bought jam at a 6-choice booth, while only 3 percent bought jam at a 24-choice booth. (Now this is some information marketing folks should read!) This "buying jam" study is related to the war game story, when folks are given too much information, an overload of circuits occurs and snap decisions can't be made.

    The chapter that impressed me the most was "Seven Seconds in the Bronx". This is a moving story of snap decisions or the thin-slicing of information by police (based on their training of what to look for in hostile situations) that resulted in the killing of an innocent victim. The case's investigation found that the dissecting of information and the actions that occurred in only seven seconds will force us to analyze the steps we take in moments of stress when we make a decision.

    Those "in the blink of an eye" decisions are summarized in the last section of the book. "It's the kind of wisdom that someone acquires after a life-time of learning and watching and doing. It's judgment. And what Blink is-what all the stories and studies and arguments add up to--is an attempt to understand this magical and mysterious thing called judgment."

    It's the observation of our behavior and that of others that Creative Energy Options (CEO) addresses in our leadership course, Total Leadership Connections™ and in other consulting/programs conducted by CEO. Our programs create the experiential environment for you to notice why you react the way you do, why others react the way they do, and what pushes your hot button--the behavior that happens in a Blink!

    Much like CEO's learnings, Blink encourages readers to reflect on their judgment and avoid biased opinions and pre-conceived notions. Total Leaders come from the place of being open to new ideas different from our own and both CEO's and Gladwell's leadership agenda is to do it differently and better than we've ever done before.

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