Interview: Ancestry.com Talks Millennial Leadership Development Today

Meet Elden

Elden Maxwell, VP of Talent Development & Management at Ancestry.com, has led multiple aspects of talent globally for over 25 years including L&D, diversity and inclusion, talent management, staffing and organization development. He has worked at Ancestry, Symantec, Sutherland Global Services, Aspen Dental, National Semiconductor and more.

In this exclusive interview, Elden breaks down why millennial leadership development is different from past generations, how his organization is leading by example and much more.

The Changing Workforce

Q: At the upcoming CLO Exchange, you’ll be moderating a panel on ‘Millennial Leadership Development in the Information Age.’ What do you hope is the key take-away from this session?

A: A “one size fits all” approach to leadership development will not work. Different generations learn differently and have different learning needs.

Understanding those differences and catering to them where possible will make your leadership development solutions have a more positive impact.

Q: What is the toughest challenge you & your team have faced (and overcome) this year?

A: You can build great leadership development programs, but they will do no good if you can’t get the right people to want to come and make time for it.

We've found there are a couple keys to success. First, you have to get the senior leaders behind the program and championing it for their teams. And second, make leadership development a cool enough experience that managers leave the program promoting it (by talking about it) to others.

This Q&A by Paris Armstrong, IQPC Marketing Coordinator, originally appeared on the CLO Exchange page. To read the full interview, click here.