Date

11-13-2025

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)

Chair

Benjamin Wood

Keywords

Millennials, work motivation, motivation to lead, leadership transition

Disciplines

Psychology

Abstract

The workforce has evolved and this path was accelerated by the aftermath of the global COVID pandemic starting 2019. Traditionalist and Baby Boomer employees have been rapidly transitioning out of the workforce, which has created a need to find motivated workers and leaders to fill vacated positions. Millennials have been surveyed for their potential to fill these leadership vacuums, yet the research suggested that they present differently from other generational cohorts in terms of their motivation to work and their motivation to lead in the workplace. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine whether any relationship could be found between Millennials' work motivation and their motivation to lead in organizational settings. Factors that Millennials perceived as being influential to their decision to transition to leadership roles in organizational settings were also explored. Although the final SEM indicated some statistically significant paths, poor model fit indices and sampling error limited the interpretability of these findings. However, themes that emerged from the qualitative data analyses suggested evidence of a relationship between Millennials’ work motivation and their motivation to lead in organizational settings despite the fact that statistical relationships were weak in this sample. The recommendation was made for future research to be conducted with a sample size of N ≥ 200 to better understand the nature of this relationship.

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