Leadership relay with Mette Kjærgaard Svendsen
We revisit the City of Copenhagen’s work on leadership well-being in an interview with Mette Kjærgaard Svendsen, Senior Consultant at Work Environment Copenhagen.
By Thomas Hanssen, CEO of CfL. The opinion piece was published in Finans, 21. november 2025
“The youth of today love luxury. They have bad manners, despise authority, show no respect for their elders, and talk when they should be working. They no longer rise when older people enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter in company, gobble their desserts at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
This quote is often attributed to Socrates, though it has never been verified. What it does show, however, is that complaints about unruly youth are the oldest story in the world.
Concerns about young people’s behavior and their respect for traditions and authority are nothing new. Every generation tends to view the next as less disciplined or less respectful.
All the more discouraging, then, that today’s workplaces are filled with complaints about “snowflake” youth who give up at the slightest challenge—not to mention all the older employees who “sit comfortably and resist change.”
Today, four generations share the workplace—soon to be five—and we need all of them. It’s tempting to elevate generational leadership to a distinct management discipline. The problem is that it’s far, far too simplistic.
Also read: Be Careful with Layoffs
Good leadership requires a nuanced understanding of people—but a one-sided focus on a single employee group risks creating polarization, whether that group is defined by generation, personality type, or diagnosis.
We must be able to include everyone, yet a stereotypical perception of one group always carries the risk of marginalizing another—and overlooking everyone in between. This, in turn, undermines any attempt to build an inclusive culture—a task already challenging enough due to factors such as gender, religion, and life stages.
The text continues below the box.
An excessive focus on generations can create unnecessary divides and reinforce stereotypes that hinder effective collaboration. If we constantly frame discussions around generational differences, it can foster an us versus them mentality—leading to fragmentation rather than cohesion.
Of course, I acknowledge that every generation has its own unique values, work ethic, and expectations of leadership and work life—shaped by the particular moment in history they grew up in.
I also agree that younger employees often bring fresh perspectives and technological insight, while older employees’ strength lies in their experience and historical understanding.
We must continuously adapt our organizations to demographic and cultural shifts, so it’s simply good sense to be aware of what characterizes different generations.
So far, so good—but that by no means implies that all millennials are disloyal tech enthusiasts, that all boomers resist change, or whatever other labels we come up with.
An excessive focus on generations can create unnecessary divides and reinforce stereotypes that hinder effective collaboration. If we constantly frame discussions around generational differences, it can foster an us versus them mentality—leading to fragmentation rather than cohesion.
Personality, experience, competencies, and motivation vary far more within generations than between them. We also know that everything from nationality and political beliefs to religion and education level has a significant influence on our work values.
Good leadership should therefore focus on the individual—adapting to each employee’s needs and strengths—while ensuring that the organization’s goals are achieved.
We must embrace the whole person, regardless of the variables that influence how we work and collaborate. True leadership of individuals becomes strong not by relying on arbitrary labels to simplify complexity, but by recognizing and responding to that complexity.
Let me end with a slightly more recent quote—from George Orwell:
“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”
My call to action is this: let’s be the wiser ones. Resist the temptation to use labels as shortcuts—see the whole person, embrace the diversity that challenges us, and use it as an opportunity to build better workplaces together.
Also read: Soft or Tough? When We Talk about Poor Leadership, We Miss the Point
We revisit the City of Copenhagen’s work on leadership well-being in an interview with Mette Kjærgaard Svendsen, Senior Consultant at Work Environment Copenhagen.
Job Hugging is about staying in your job — not out of desire, but out of fear of losing it. This raises three key questions for us as leaders, writes CfL’s CEO, Thomas Hanssen.
The extent of remote work should therefore be determined solely by company strategy — and if physical presence is necessary, individual preferences must yield, writes CfL’s CEO Thomas Hanssen.
The efforts focus primarily on two areas: self-leadership and support with administrative tasks. Read why in this interview with CCO Kristina Steenfeldt Madsen.