Simon Sinek argues that many in Gen Y and Gen Z lack essential interpersonal skills because much of their communication and relationships occur online. He gives examples—teenagers too afraid to answer a door, and young adults 'ghosting' long-term partners—in order to show how avoidance of difficult conversations undermines deep relationships and individual confidence.
One of the big struggles that this young generation, Gen Y and Gen Z are struggling with is they're ill equipped with the skills required for.
Being a successful human being. And what I mean by that is so much of their relationships exist online, so much of their communication exists over text or direct message that there's a generation, unfortunately there are too many of them who literally aren't learning the skills how to talk to people.
You know, I heard a story of somebody who, they have a 14 year old who when the doorbell rings, they can't answer the door because they're too scared to talk to the stranger. Well, it sounds funny when you're a 14 year old, but that's gonna hurt when you're older. You know, the ability to form deep, meaningful relationships, the ability to have difficult conversations. Too many kids these days if they want to break up with their girlfriend or boyfriend, they just ghost them. They could have been dating for months. It's not, I'm not talking about like after one date and it doesn't work out. I don't care about that. I'm talking about you're dating somebody for three or four months and you decide it doesn't work out. So the way you're too scared to have a confrontation so you just don't reply to any of their texts and unfollow them on all social media which is unbelievably traumatic for the person on the receiving end. It's like a death for them, right? Like there's a panic, what happened to them. All the self doubt so destroys self confidence. All because one person was too chicken to say I don't think this is working out.
These are absolutely essential skill sets because when you're a leader, difficult conversations is one of the things you have to have. We call you leader not because you have rank. We call you leader not because you're at the top of the organization. We call you leader not because somebody promoted you. We called you leader because you have the courage to go first. We call you leader because you went first towards the danger. First to take the risk, first to trust. I will give you trust without expecting trust back. That's called leadership. I will approach you and give you difficult feedback that everybody knows but everybody's afraid to tell you so that you can grow as a human being. I will do that. That's called leadership. I will ask people that it's time to transition off the team because we have to reform this team. And I love you and you're loyal and I'm going to make that excruciating decision where everybody else won't make it because they don't want to hurt their friends feelings. And if we don't equip people at a young age with these skills, unfortunately, they're now entering our companies without these skills. And it is now the responsibility of the companies to teach those skills. We have no choice. Companies have to teach listening, effective communication, how to give and receive feedback, how to have difficult conversations. And if your company doesn't have these classes, then the future of leadership is not looking good. And unfortunately, the responsibility now falls on the company. Because we didn't do it in school and we didn't do it in university, we definitely didn't do it at business school. So when are we going to do it? Better late than never.
