Title: Leadership Diversity in an Ageing Workforce
Abstract: As the population and the workforce are ageing, the average age of civil servants is increasing. Furthermore, the public sector generally has an older demographic profile than the private sector. New policies are required to attract workers and to motivate them to work longer (OECD, 2006b). Several models have been formulated to manage an ageing workforce. In each of these models, an essential role is placed upon leadership (Vanmullem and Hondeghem, 2005; Thijssen and Leisink, 2004; Ilmarinen, 2001; Walker and Taylor,1998). Leadership has to deal with the specific needs of a wide range of age groups in order to keep workers active and motivated as long as possible. However, little research has been dedicated to the role of leadership in managing an age diverse workforce. Nevertheless the field of leadership has developed several perspectives to allow leadership diversity researchers to be creative in using much of its framework (DiTomaso and Hooijberg, 1996). In this paper, we use the leadership style theory to explore the relationship between leadership and the motivation of different age groups in the workforce. In the first place, we review some theoretical issues concerning leadership and motivation. In the second place we discuss the data and methodology and the results of the analysis. Finally, we end this paper with a discussion of the results and some general conclusions.