Are you a millennial manager?

I'm a millennial momager. If you are too, you need to read this

Gen Z have an uncanny ability of identifying a distinctly millennial trait, pointing it out, and making everyone deeply self-conscious with their accuracy. I am acutely aware of the millennial pause when on camera. I’ve forced myself to make a heart with my index and middle finger when prompted, lest I be outed as my actual age. I resist saying anything that could be worthy of a ‘millennial core’ edit and deemed cringe, such as describing someone as ‘smol’ (which I wouldn’t do anyway, but now it feels like the ‘smol’ slip is a genuine risk) or posting a gif reaction.

But there are some millennialisms I can’t avoid forever. One of these is being a millennial manager, or, as some people have deemed the archetype, the millennial momager.

For anyone not in the know, here are some tropes of the millennial manager:

• they care deeply about their team’s emotional and mental wellbeing

• they’re relaxed about people taking starting late, finishing early, taking their full lunch break, and so on

• they don’t believe in shouting or aggression

• they really, really want to be liked

• and they want to be viewed as a chill, cool boss

• they’re into ‘transparency’ and ‘clarity’

• they’ll encourage their team to take time off if they’re sick, or have an appointment, or for whatever reason

• they don’t care how or when you do the work, as long as it’s done

• they’ll cover for their team and stand between them and more senior people

• they’ll step in to help out whenever it’s needed

• they know everything about their team’s personal lives and will offer up advice on outside-of-work dramas

Each time I see an article or TikTok about the millennial manager, I feel the same as I did when I saw a TikTok about millennials deciding on one makeup look in their teens and then sticking with that until the day they die (black cat eye); unbearably seen. I am, completely and utterly, a millennial manager. I have previously asked people I managed to stop calling me ‘mum’. I’ve snuck around rules (at a previous job, not my current one, for clarity and in case anyone I work with is reading this) to make sure people have time off for mental health reasons. ‘Not a problem’, ‘no worries at ALL’, and ‘don’t be silly, just do what you need’ are basically catchphrases at this point. I regularly lecture those I manage for arriving at work early or staying 10 minutes late. I feel - and express, often - like a proud parent to my team, their biggest cheerleader, their defenders.

This might sound like a massive brag about how lovely I am, but the truth is that there are many, many challenges that come as part and parcel of millennial managing. I’m becoming more aware of these and how to navigate them, and I really want to urge any fellow millennial managers to understand the issues that are likely to arise.

The millennial manager’s care for their team’s wellbeing is, of course, a wonderful thing. It’s great to treat people like people, and it’s vital that we take mental health in the workplace seriously. But there’s a huge risk of your emotional warmth melting down boundaries. This is not only emotionally exhausting, often propelling the millennial manager right into burnout, but can also throw up issues when actual work needs clash with individual ones. I’ve been in situations before where I’ve been so focused on being ‘there’ for someone I managed that I was spending hours messaging about their mental health, giving them all the time they wanted away from their computer, and offering to pay towards their therapy (despite feeling unable to afford therapy for myself, which I definitely needed). At the same time, targets were coming from above and they were - obviously - not being hit because certain people I managed were running rampant and not doing their actual job.

It’s hard, once you’ve set yourself up as the ‘chill’ boss, to switch gears and tell people they need to pull their finger out. It’s also hard for your team to believe you’re serious after you’ve spent so long saying you ‘don’t mind’ or ‘it’s no big deal’. This is something I’ve heard from a lot of other millennial managers: they’re chill, but start to feel like the people they manage start to take the piss as a result… and they now have no clue how to call them out on it.

Being a good millennial manager relies on your managees playing their part; ie always delivering their work, usually being on time (no matter how often their manager says it’s fine to rock up late), and having a good attitude. The second people they manage veer slightly off course, the millennial manager crashes. This is often because they’re in middle management positions, and have people above them imposing stricter expectations than they might be comfortable with. A millennial manager can only do so much - those above them are the ones really controlling the feel of the workplace, and are unlikely to be as relaxed about flexibility and output based on vibes.

How does a millennial manager deal with forces from above that contradict their management values? Sometimes they’ll crack and do a sudden switcheroo, telling their team that actually, they’ll need to cancel that holiday request, and that they need to up their deliverables (or else??). These about-turns go badly. The millennial manager stresses at length beforehand and long afterwards. The people they manage are baffled. People thrive on predictability, and the dramatic switch from ‘caring’ to ‘caring only about the bottom line’ registers as a form of broken trust. More often, the millennial manager will try desperately to shield their team from what’s coming from above. To hide the fact that their team aren’t performing the way they should, the millennial manager does more and more work to make up for it.

And this leads into another common problem for the millennial manager. For all their talk about boundaries and leaving on time and taking a lunch break, they’re most likely to be found in the office an hour before they’re supposed to be, finishing projects at the weekend, and shovelling a giant sandwich down their throats while typing away to cover the workload of someone who’s taken the day off. Oh, and the millennial manager is also sick, in this scenario. They might tell other people to take the day off for a headache, but for some reason they continue to toil away while violently throwing up or hallucinating from a fever.

The millennial manager is, in effect, a massive hypocrite. They’re all about good workplace practices… for everyone else, not for them.

For all their talk of ‘transparency’ and ‘clarity’, they are also, by nature, dishonest. They are, as Taylor Swift (the ultimate millennial) describes herself, pathological people-pleasers. They desperately want to be seen as good at their job, so can’t fully push back against those above them or rock the boat of the way things are done. But they also desperately want to be liked by those below them on the ladder, so won’t take actions that would actually help those they manage. The millennial manager so deeply fears becoming a ‘bad boss’ that they’ll bit their tongue; they won’t tell someone that actually, their work isn’t up to scratch, or state that they do care that someone else consistently arrives 20 minutes late each morning. This is a shame, because often it’s honest feedback that allows someone to thrive. Sometimes someone needs to be told to sort out their attitude, or that their writing is full of errors (rather than the manager just quietly fixing their mistakes), or that they’re making a terrible impression.

These are the dangers of being a millennial manager. The solution is not to stop being a millennial manager and instead lean into the old-school shouty bosses of the past, but instead to be aware of these pitfalls and carefully navigate around them. A key part of doing this: let go of the need to be chill, liked, and perceived as perfect. Trying to pursue all of these thing all the time doesn’t work. Know that sometimes, you will be annoying. Know that you have friends outside of the office and that your self-worth cannot be dependent on either how well you’re doing at work or how cool your team thinks you are. Know that you are millennial, and thus you will at times be cringe. Do not resist these things. And most of all, give yourself the same grace and care as you give people at work. Before you can momage others, you must momage yourself.

Work-related reading recs:

• Love the phrase ‘vampire tasks’

• Heavily relate to FOBO, also

• This is technically not only about work, but contains some very interesting thoughts on AI and work: ‘Humanity’s remaining timeline? It looks more like five years than 50’: meet the neo-luddites warning of an AI apocalypse

• What would make you happy at work?

• What Gen Z want in their careers