Monday, October 27, 2025
Monday, October 27, 2025
The eighth #WeLeadComms debate brought together voices spanning five decades of life experience, from a 14-year-old social media influencer to seasoned professionals who entered the workforce when being “seen and not heard” was still the norm. What emerged wasn’t the usual generational finger-pointing, but something more useful: specific tensions that matter, and ideas about what to do with them.
Hosted by our Editor-in-Chief Mike Klein and moderated by Sean Trainor, the session featured Natalie Moran (founder of Comms Futurist, US), Damaryan Benton (founder of The PR Habitat), and Rateel Alshehri, MENA’s youngest podcaster, the youngest TEDx host, and founder of Rateel Alpha Talk — a Saudi Generation Alpha voice followed by over 600K on TikTok and 500K on Instagram. Her platform offers what most debates often miss: genuine listening and understanding across generational lines.
The #WeLeadComms Debate took place in partnership with the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence (CSCE) and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).
The full debate can be found at https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_N3qj87XlRvKWEGYstw_mQg.
Trainor opened with a provocation: are generational labels helpful, or do they just reinforce bias? His own view, shaped by 40 years in the field, was straightforward: “Fundamentally, nothing much has really changed. Technology has changed, the way we communicate with each other has changed, and certainly the younger generation have more opportunity to have a voice.”
Moran framed generational differences as diversity, not division. “We all bring our own set of beliefs and standpoints that are informed in large part by the generation we come from,” she noted. “It informs our work styles, how we build relationships, how we communicate. I tend to think of it in terms of a strength.”
But Benton immediately complicated that optimistic framing. “I see diversity in the range of ideas that young professionals bring,” she said. “The division comes in when our perspectives are labeled as naive, or too on the edge.” She pointed to a specific pattern: older colleagues viewing lack of preparation in younger workers as individual failure rather than a systemic issue. “There’s so many layers—whether that’s academia having to catch up with how fast our industry is evolving.”
Rateel Alshehri didn’t wait for permission to challenge assumptions. At 14, already running substantial social media platforms, she confronted the age barriers in professional opportunity directly. “I wonder, you know, why do we have to wait? Why do we have to wait for us to be 18? It’s just a number.”
Her critique went deeper than impatience. She identified a fundamental gap in how organizations think about capability versus credentials. “Schools teach science, math, equations—but the real-life things, no one really seems to teach us. They taught me how to be a doctor, but how am I gonna speak to patients? These are things schools are forgetting about.”
Trainor suggested organizations could benefit from having young voices on boards as non-executive directors. Rateel’s response: “That would be my pleasure.” The exchange revealed something the debate returned to repeatedly—capability doesn’t wait for traditional career timelines, and organizations that rely solely on age-based hiring miss available talent.
The conversation shifted when Benton described entering a profession with “this antiquated understanding of what the ‘right way’ to work is.” She spoke about grinding culture normalized across generations, especially acute in public relations. “I was so exhausted within a month, I was feeling extremely drained, I was working more than full-time hours.”
Moran built on this, identifying what younger generations are questioning: “This culture of burnout that has been explained—this idea of coming into a profession and paying your dues is just so tired. I really appreciate that younger people are entering and being like, I don’t think it has to be this way. I don’t think burnout needs to be the measurement of success.”
The generational divide here wasn’t about work ethic. It was about younger professionals refusing to accept suffering as professional initiation. They’re not rejecting hard work; they’re rejecting the inherited assumption that exhaustion equals dedication.
The debate addressed how technology shapes generational dynamics, particularly around AI’s impact on career entry. Benton described the compression: “Our industry is evolving so fast. That’s why our work supporting young talent is so important.”
But technology also created unexpected common ground. Moran highlighted social media as a tool for professional visibility across generations: “The work will not speak for itself, regardless of how old you are. You have to talk about your work and literally put the receipts of your impact in front of executives.”
Rateel reinforced this from her Generation Alpha perspective, demonstrating that digital fluency isn’t about age—it’s about adapting to where conversations actually happen.
The panel spent considerable time on reverse mentoring, with Benton describing weekly meetings with students. “They’re coming into these calls wanting to learn from me, and I’m always like, wait, I’m taking all the little nuggets from them as well.”
Moran emphasized this shouldn’t be one-directional: “Older generations need to be learning from younger folks. It’s not just helping them along—they have a lot to teach us too.”
The insight cuts through the usual mentoring model where knowledge flows downward. Instead, the panel described something more dynamic: different forms of expertise meeting at various career stages, each generation bringing specific value the others lack.
Benton introduced another generational shift: younger professionals treating mental health as legitimate workplace concern rather than private weakness. “Our generation will literally say, I’m anxious today, I can’t meet. And it’s not seen as weakness—it’s actually seen as strength because you’re recognizing what you need.”
The panel acknowledged this represents significant cultural change, moving from presenteeism regardless of condition toward acknowledging human limitations as part of sustainable performance.
Near the debate’s end, Benton posed a reframing question: “What if we stopped asking what generation are you, and instead asked: What is the future you want to build? How do you see yourself impacting the industry?”
Rateel drove the point home in her closing: “The future won’t belong to one generation, it will belong to all of us together. They should stop saying older generation, younger generation—we should just say team. At the end of the day, we want the best for each other.”
The practical takeaway from an hour of cross-generational dialogue wasn’t about which generation has it harder or better. It was about specific organizational practices that need updating: hiring based on demonstrated capability rather than age proxies, creating space for different work patterns without punishing either intensity or boundaries, building genuine two-way learning rather than one-directional mentoring, and recognizing that professional wisdom doesn’t follow a simple accumulation curve.
Trainor quoted Rateel at the conclusion, “You don’t have to be old to be wise.”
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The full debate can be found at https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_N3qj87XlRvKWEGYstw_mQg
Written by: Editor
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