Next Up: The Great Reckoning and the Great Reset

I have written several Leading Thoughts about The Great Resignation that is besetting leaders today. Workers, young workers in particular, are resigning their current jobs in search of better bosses, better rewards, and better opportunities to use their gifts. They have resigned by the millions in 2021, creating both great upheaval and great promise for businesses.

Many of you have been stirred by my descriptions of what is happening and more than a few have asked me what I really believe—“no, really!”—about what is coming. Here goes, down and dirty.

I believe The Great Resignation is going to be followed by The Great Reckoning. The reason has to do with generational attitudes toward work.

My parents were products of the Great Depression-Era thinking that you got a job, you clung to it, you worked hard, and you retired comfortably. Benefits were nearly your ultimate concern. To not have a job was terrifying.

I had a slightly different view, as befit my generation. I knew that work was important and have not ceased to work since college. But I lived in an age of entrepreneurship and innovation. I worked for organizations in my early life, and then I created ways to apply my gifts more directly in the market. I wrote. I consulted. I spoke. I coached speakers. I started organizations for men. I championed social causes. I also took limited roles with organizations I respected.

Now, my children are completely different. Their attitudes toward work are beyond anything my parents and I could have conceived. They have already in their thirties changed jobs more than I have in my entire life. They make far more money than I did at their age and largely while working from home. And they speak of future job changes and directions as though all possibilities are open to them and their trajectory is ever upward.

I hope it is. And it likely will be.

But it can’t be that way for everyone who has resigned their jobs of late. Many of these are millennials who feel that there will always be people eager for their skills and eager to pay them well for their contributions. I believe reality is going to smack many of these in the face. I believe that transformations in our economy are going to narrow the number of jobs available at the upper levels all while resignations give the appearance of a hot labor market.

Consider: experts are saying that more than 50,000 jobs are going away permanently in the Las Vegas hospitality/casino/entertainment industry. 50,000 in just that industry. I think it will be the same in other industries due to technology, globalization, and streamlining.

Those who have quickly quit their jobs assuming they can easily get better employment are facing a reckoning. Upgrades will happen for some. Not for most.

This will lead to a Great Reset. Refashioned industries needing new skills and employing fewer people is likely to be the future.

Now, this isn’t a newsletter about economic forecasting. It is about leadership, and strong leaders will have amazing opportunities in the future. They can hire better leaders in their firms and transform the whole into a marvelous place to work. They can do more with less, serve more widely, and prosper more fully all while doing greater social good.

And consider this: most experts say that where people work will shape them more in the future than perhaps even organizations of faith and family. This may not be a happy thought but it is true and it does mean opportunity for the kind of leaders who read Leading Thoughts.

Lead well. Lead smart. Shape lives. Shape society. Prosper in every way. That’s what The Great Resignation, The Great Reckoning, and The Great Reset can mean to you.