Are your parents like my parents?

If so, then you know about the unspoken rules and etiquette of how my generation was taught to navigate business.

It goes a little something like this:

Get in somewhere.

Put your head down.

Bite your lip (a lot).

Grind it out for 40 years.

Get a watch.

Retire.

Once upon a time, this was the going wet paint definition of “Be Professional”.

The gift was just getting in….just getting paid…just getting the opportunity to just keep going.

Then “we” came along, survived our employment for a decade (or two) and it dawned on us that we wanted more. Unfortunately, habits were often set. And it was hard to break up with many of the unhealthy rules of work we were soaked in from the past.

Just as some of us were figuring this out, a new generation was entering the workforce under an entirely new set of rules.

To them, the idea of being loyal just for the sake of being loyal was like stumbling onto a 404 page in their minds.

They didn’t want to sign up for this type of life. They wanted flexibility. They also wanted opportunity. And if they didn’t get both? Well…the good ones would leave.

Here lies our present day “professional” conundrum:

Our parent’s generation taught us their definition of leadership.

It’s not their fault that their generational business ideology was formed because the forces of work were quite different when they entered the workforce. Back then, options were bleaker. It was harder to get a new job. Or so it felt that way.

Why?

Because our parents didn’t have access to an internet. There was no LinkedIn. There was no social media. They didn’t have many places to tune in to see what our neighbors were doing on a Tuesday afternoon. Today? Access is a plenty. Right or wrong, we all have access to what life might be like to be someone else, somewhere else.

My generations definition of leadership still has moments of “put your head down and get the work done”.

So the gap that sits between this type of thinking and the newest generation is not small.

My hunch is that the companies who have leaders who have been unwilling to waiver from that hard-stance-belief are losing; losing their culture, losing their best people, and losing their sleep trying to figure out why talent is leaving.

These leaders have the wrong idea of what it means to “be professional” today.

If you’ve made it this far, then perhaps:

• you are a good leader who is doing right

• you are a leader uncertain on whether or not you are landing

• you are a “now generation” worker who wants more

For all of you, here’s a free tip:

The secret to sticky retention has little to do with adding ping pong or foosball tables to your office to improve your culture.

It is about staying real. Being human. Asking questions. And listening.

My wife reminds me all the time that often it’s our kids who are parenting us — not the other way around. They are our teachers. We are here to guide them on their journeys, giving the tools and path to independence. Being a metaphor junkie, I see our parental obligations much like those bowling alley bumpers that younger kids use when bowling, the sole goal is to keep our kids out of the gutters and focused on rolling straight down the lane towards the pins.

Well, how are these two examples any different than being a great leader with your now generation workforce?

Remember when we all used to have a commute?

In those days, there was an imaginary line we’d all drive over on the way to work. We couldn’t figure out exactly where that imaginary line was but we knew that somewhere on our drive, “personal you” would fade away as “professional you” prepared themselves for the day. All day long, you were “professional you” until you got back in your car and thawed away over that imaginary line on your drive home until, hopefully, “personal you” was ready to walk in that door.

For many leaders, this has remained their definition of “be professional”.

My advice to that group?

Drop that version immediately.

When you’re home — and you’re “just you” — bring more of that person to work.

It’s time we drop our current “Be professional” definition.

“Be Professional” as a definition today needs to shift to, “Be Real”.

When a leader is real they give employees around them permission to be real.

And if you can show up real everyday, then your people will stay.

“Be Professional”.