Graduation Year
2026
Date of Defense
3-17-2026
Degree Name
Executive Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA)
Department
Charles F. Dolan School of Business
Document Type
Dissertation
First Advisor
Mousumi Bose Godbole
Abstract
Traditional leadership models often fail to capture the dynamic and reciprocal nature of contemporary manager and employee relationships, particularly within generationally diverse workplaces. As Millennials increasingly assume managerial roles and Generation Z enters the workforce, leadership approaches must adapt to evolving relational expectations. This dissertation introduces Guided Stewardship; a leadership framework grounded in dyadic relationships that emphasizes how authority shifts based on context. Using a mixed-methods design, this study included 41 qualitative interviews and participant observations with Millennial managers and Generation Z employees. Grounded theory and laddering analysis identified three core attributes of Guided Stewardship: contextual authority, mutual desire to learn, and outside-of-work relationships. These findings informed the development of parallel survey instruments distributed to Millennial managers and Generation Z employees. A prestudy was conducted to assess scale reliability and refine measures through exploratory factor analysis. The final study employed confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to examine relationships among Guided Stewardship attributes, collaboration, and innovation. Results indicated that collaboration was positively associated with innovation across both cohorts; however, the Guided Stewardship attributes that activated collaboration differed by generation. Mutual desire to learn emerged as the strongest predictor for Millennial managers, whereas contextual authority played a stronger role for Generation Z employees. Overall, Guided Stewardship offers a relational and context-sensitive framework for understanding leadership in the workplace and highlights the importance of dyadic relationships in fostering collaboration and innovation.