Management is something that’s hard enough at the best of times, but it’s probably particularly challenging for young managers hoping to exert their influence on a workforce that may be considerably older than them.

That the academic literature around the topic is relatively sparse perhaps suggests that such an event is relatively rare, but one recent paper from a team of German researchers did set out to better understand the unique challenges faced by young managers.

Age discrimination

Our understanding and perception of age discrimination is pretty well established when it comes to discrimination towards older employees.  The study highlights the equally important issue surrounding discrimination based upon someone’s youth.

An analysis of 83 different teams found that there was a substantial risk of young managers being rejected by their teams on account of a perceived lack of experience and status.  In some cases, this rejection was so severe that it prompted the managers to resign.

What’s more, the study revealed that many of the strategies employed to counter such a situation often do little but make things worse.  For instance, if the manager openly consults with his team, rather than enhancing their reputation, it often serves to diminish it.

“At first glance, one would assume that younger managers should involve subordinates in decision-making and consultations due to their already lowered status”, the authors say. “The opposite is true: participative leadership further lowers younger managers’ ability to influence their teams as it requires leaders to have certain status. When employed by younger managers, subordinates might see participative leadership as an illegitimate request for knowledge and resources. In line with this, research has shown that when low-status leaders use participative leadership, their perceived status drops even further.”

A better approach

So if a consultative approach to leadership doesn’t appear to work, what does?  The paper suggests that a better approach is to use things such as praise and recognition to bolster the status of the young manager.

The authors argue that we’re happy to receive praise regardless of the age or status of the giver, and we’re hardwired to reciprocate these things, thus resulting in praise being heaped onto the shoulders of the young manager.

It’s an approach that’s clearly working at the recruitment company Indeed.  They have recently launched an initiative called Indeed University that sees new hires build an intrapreneurship project in their first months in the job.

Each project needs to attract a couple of Indeed staffers to support them, and there is a distinct hope that young Indeed employees will provide some managerial support to the project.

“Students simply need the backing of two colleagues to progress a project – with this autonomy, they are free from ideas being killed in their infancy — we’ve created a learning engine. We are growing great product leaders,” Chris Hyams, President at Indeed, said to me when we met recently.

Younger employees are increasingly likely to enter into managerial positions, so a greater understanding of how they can influence their teams is going to be crucial if those managers are to be successful in their role.

Organizations can take that first step by appreciating some of the challenges that younger managers face and devising strategies to overcome them.  Projects such as the Indeed University are one way of achieving that, but I’d love to hear your own stories of how young managers in your organizations can get ahead.