Every manager on your payroll is teaching your culture, whether they mean to or not. How a supervisor handles a tense meeting, a missed deadline, or a frustrated employee sends a clear message about what behavior is acceptable. New data from SHRM suggests that message may land differently depending on who’s receiving it.
Not Every Generation Sees the Same Leader
In a recent SHRM civility pulse survey, 79% of Baby Boomers said their organization’s leaders often or always behave civilly in day-to-day interactions. Among Millennials, that number dropped to 66%, and among Gen Z it was 65%.
The leaders didn’t change. The perception did. Younger employees may simply not feel the same level of respect from leadership that their older colleagues do, even when managers believe they’re treating everyone the same way.
Part of the gap comes down to definitions. Professional courtesy was named a key marker of civil leadership by 74% of Boomers, but only 53% of Gen Z. What reads as respectful to one group can feel like formality, or even distance, to another.
Where Everyone Agrees
The good news for employers is that the fundamentals are nearly universal. Across generations, workers identified the same core behaviors as signs of respect:
Active listening (96%), clear and concise language (92%), communicating in advance (89%), and maintaining eye contact (88%).
These aren’t generational preferences. They’re the baseline. Leaders who get these right are speaking a language every employee understands.
Composure Sets the Standard
On SHRM’s Honest HR podcast, Marissa Kraftig, CHRO at INT Teledyne, argued that civility starts with self-management. Her point was simple: HR and leadership aren’t just reacting to situations, they’re modeling the culture every time they respond. When leaders escalate along with a conflict, employees learn that escalation is acceptable. When leaders stay calm, listen, and communicate clearly, that becomes the norm. Kraftig framed emotional intelligence not as a soft skill but as a leadership action.
What This Means for Hiring
Most organizations try to fix civility after the fact, through training, coaching, or HR intervention. But the traits that drive composure under pressure, clear communication, and consistent treatment of others show up long before someone is promoted into a leadership role.
That’s where assessment helps. The Achiever™ measures personality factors alongside mental aptitude, giving employers a clearer picture of how a candidate is likely to handle pressure, people, and responsibility. Built-in validity scales flag when responses may not reflect how a candidate actually behaves, so you’re evaluating the person, not a polished performance.
You can’t train every generation’s expectations into a leader overnight. You can start with people who already bring the right foundation.
Want to see how The Achiever™ evaluates leadership potential? Explore The Achiever™ or reach out to our team to talk through your next hire.