The Generic Attributes of the New Millennial Leaders

Abstract

As the millennials continue to mature and enter the workforce, it is important that employers understand what this generation expects from all aspects of their employment and leadership preferences in order to prepare them to be the next millennials leaders. The purpose of this research is to determine the generic attributes of the new millennial leaders in Malaysia. The survey is distributed among executives in the selected government-linked, multinational, and public-sector companies in Malaysia, with 237 (72%) of whom being millennials. Partial least square (PLS-SEM) via software SmartPLS 3.0 was applied to evaluate the measurement model and the structural model. Results from this study indicate that the attributes of the millennials leader are innovative (0.213), inspiration (0.128), and visionary (0.122). Thus, organization can focus on those attributes in preparing the millennials for being the next generation of leaders. This study offers important implications to researchers as well as practitioners, and highlights the leadership attributes that could help in enhancing millennials leadership. This study produces a new millennials leadership attributes model for millennials leaders in Malaysian companies; with millennials becoming the fastest-growing age groups in the organizations, this study will promote effective and efficient skills for the millennials.