Managing in the Age of Uncertainty
How to develop your authentic management style
How to Develop Your Management Style: Why Authenticity Is Your Biggest Asset as a First-Time Manager
Summary: My research into the future of managing found that millennials and gen-z look for managers who are true to themselves. The next generation wants to work for managers who share the unique way they think and make decisions. What I call the “Manager Mindset” is one of the Six Drivers of Consistency from my research into the future of managing. The best people aren't interested in a standard answer from a standard playbook — that’s straight out of the boomer era. To this generation of talent, authenticity is your greatest asset as a first-time manager.
The Six Drivers of Consistency — Managing in the Age of Uncertainty
A research-backed series for first-time millennial and gen-z managers by Ron Ricci
[Overview: How to Be a More Consistent Manager] · [Accountability: How to Hold People Accountable Without Micromanaging] · [Process: How to Share Your Management Process With Your Team] · [Alignment: How to Align Your Team to Your Priorities] · [Listening: How to Listen to Your Employees Effectively] · [Mindset: How to Develop Your Management Style] · [Facts: How to Use Facts to Manage Your Team’s Performance]
No one wants to work for a corporate suit.
In a recent post, we learned the process for manager excellence at ServiceNow starts with “Grow Yourself.” At the heart of what ServiceNow’s Stefani Okamoto shared is recognizing the unique nature of every manager — each person — to manage in their own way.
“Grow Yourself” meant something completely different to the boomer generation. Boomer managers were encouraged to become “general managers” — where managers and leaders tried to learn something about every aspect of a business, regardless of how a brain was wired. That’s why so many boomer managers rotated from one role to another trying to become, literally, a “generalist” about the business.
The corporate generalist is what inspired the phrase “corporate suit,” meaning a certain conformity to a certain way of thinking.
It was all possible because the corporate ladder was alway there, a place to move up, sideways and, sometimes, out and onward.
It was good to be a “suit” in the boomer era. It’s the exact opposite of what the next generation of top talent looks for in a manager today.
My research into the future of managing found that millennials and gen-z look for managers who are true to themselves. We have all heard about being authentic; in a manager context, the next gen want to work for managers who share the unique way they think and make decisions — not unlike what we learned from Stefani at ServiceNow.
What I call the “Manager Mindset” is one of the Six Drivers of Consistency from my research. As you read about a manager’s mindset, think about yourself. What kind of decision-maker are you? How self-aware are you of your behaviors? Do you know your strengths and weaknesses? What kind of feedback have you heard?
[Think you know yourself? Readers of this newsletter have access to a free 360 assessment experience with the Self-Aware Leader, one of the partners on The Culture Platform — compare how you see yourself and how your team does (normally $99). Beware: we capture verbatim statements; you may hear some real feedback.]
Why millennials and gen-z need to know how your brain is wired
Millennials and gen-z don’t have time to reverse-engineer your brain and the way it makes decisions about the team.
As a reminder, the number one reason this generation of talent leaves a team is the lack of opportunity to advance a career. The time on your team is only a chapter in a career story for millennials and gen-z. They know the corporate ladder isn’t there for them. They are betting on their manager to advance their careers.
That’s why people really care about the way a manager is wired; it helps the team anticipate the way their manager approaches budgeting and performance management. Your best people want to shine on your dashboard of responsibilities, but they know the way you think as a decision-maker will influence who gets recognized and rewarded.
If you like facts, they want to know it. If you like to listen about problems by talking directly to customers, they want to know it. If you have a gameplan when you have to make a trade-off decision, they want to know it.
In short, the best people aren’t interested in a standard answer, from a standard playbook, from a corporate suit — because everyone knows that a “suit” is a pejorative descriptor of someone who doesn’t tell people the truth.
Five steps to sharing your management mindset with your team
Managers become managers — and later leaders — because they’re effective decision-makers. The next gen simply wants you to share the way you make decisions about the team.
The easiest way to share your mindset is to put it into the lens of how you get things done. As a first-time manager, your people don’t know how you will get things done. Think about these five steps and how you would communicate each of them:
Share the steps you take to be informed first-hand about your team’s performance
Tell your people how you get to know them as individuals
Explain how you gather data about your responsibilities
Describe how you advocate for your team
Be clear about the steps you take when you have to make a tough choice
Tough, trade-off decisions are the most difficult part of being a manager. It’s where the rubber meets the road in how consistent someone is as a manager.
Consider how you would answer these questions:
When did you make a difficult trade-off decision with your budgeting? Why was it difficult? What did you learn about yourself as a decision maker?
When did you make a difficult trade-off decision with rewards and recognition? Why was it difficult? What did you learn about yourself as a decision maker?
How sharing the way you think reduces noise and builds trust
I’ve found that the more you tell your people about the way you think and make decisions, the more you build a sense of trust and fairness on the team. The best people want a predictable manager. It also shows you are human, first and foremost.
It’s also an opportunity to make sure you surround yourself with people who actually think differently from you — which your people will see. It gives the people on your team permission to be the best of themselves, which increases their conviction they have the right role on the right team.
The more people understand your unique approach to decision-making that affects them, the more it reduces “noise in the system” and keeps the team from speculating what’s next — which can only increase the sense of uncertainty in an era defined already by uncertainty.
Manager Thought of the Week
“Ambiguity, adaptability and authenticity define the leader’s role today — it’s why self-awareness matters so much.”
What Loretta Stagnitto, creator of the Self-Aware Leader assessment, told me about the importance of self-awareness in an unpredictable world. Amen to self-awareness. We’ve all worked for managers who didn’t recognize their weaknesses because they had no idea they existed.
How to be a Great First-time Manager: The Culture Platform
The only purpose-built learning and development system for first-time millennial and gen-z managers.
The corporate ladder has been dismantled rung by rung by AI. For millennials and gen-z, the predictable career path has vaporized — and most managers are navigating it alone, without any formal training.
I’ve managed about 5,000 people in my career, and was consistently ranked in the top quartile of all managers at Cisco, one of the world’s best places to work. I’ve walked in your shoes as a manager.
I left Cisco to answer one question with research and evidence: what does the manager of the future look like?
My research — conducted with thousands of young people at companies like Amazon, Google, Disney, and DoorDash — identified Six Drivers of Consistency that separate great managers from the rest, with a 95% confidence interval.
That research became The Culture Platform: a complete learning and development system — Framework, Feedback, and Tools — purpose-built for first-time millennial and gen-z managers who want to separate themselves and be a great manager of high-performance teams.
ManagerMentor • All Rights Reserved • The Culture Platform, Inc. • 2026
No one wants to work for a corporate suit. Period!