The new rules of respect across generations

When did you start calling me Udo?

Leadership in a world where the codes keep moving.

A young woman stood up at a corporate graduation ceremony recently, greeted one of Nigeria’s most prominent business leaders by his first name, and became national news almost immediately. “Good morning, Tony.” Tony Elumelu paused, initially thinking she had said “Toyin”. When she repeated herself, he told her he preferred “Mr Elumelu” or “TOE”. She adjusted and continued with her question.

Then the internet did what the internet does. One side saw disrespect, poor upbringing and a generation that no longer understands boundaries. The other saw an outdated obsession with hierarchy and titles. I found myself somewhere else entirely, because I don’t think this was really a story about one young woman’s manners or one older man’s preference. I think it was about all of us trying to navigate a world in which the codes keep moving.

I know, because I’ve had my own version of it. Some time ago, a dear younger friend called me “Udo” in a meeting. We are close. Very close, actually. There is warmth and familiarity between us, and in private we have our own language, though in public she would generally refer to me by my initials. But that day she said Udo, and I noticed something moved in me. So later, I sent her a message: “When did I become Udo to you?”

Not because Udo is offensive — it is, after all, my name. And not because I suddenly needed to establish my seniority. I wanted to understand what had changed in that particular setting that made “Udo” feel right to her. We ended up having quite an extensive conversation about it. I listened to her thinking, I shared mine, and because we were close, we could explore the nuance rather than turn it into offence. That conversation has stayed with me.

Because this isn’t even new. At least fifteen years ago, a young professional was introduced to me by someone considerably older than she was. The person making the introduction called me Mrs Okonjo. Soon afterwards, the young woman emailed me: “Dear Udo…” I remember flinching. Hang on. We don’t know each other. The person who introduced us doesn’t call me Udo. How did you arrive there? I didn’t lecture her, but I did step back from the relationship, and I’ve wondered since whether I was right. Today, I might barely notice the same email. And therein lies the problem.

Context

Think about the life of a young African professional Today. She wakes up in Lagos and joins a Zoom meeting with colleagues in New York or London, where everyone from the intern to the CEO is on first-name terms. She has a mentor in Lagos whom she calls Mrs Somebody. Her chairman may be “James” on a global conference call and “Sir” when she encounters him at an industry dinner. She may be marrying into a family where “Mummy” and “Daddy” are expected from the first introduction, or into another African family where that would feel completely unnecessary. By afternoon she’s on LinkedIn exchanging comments with someone thirty years ahead of her, and by evening, WhatsApp has collapsed whatever distance remained. Which rulebook is she supposed to use? The word hasn’t changed. The room has.

My executive assistant in South Africa called me by my first name, and it was completely appropriate. My executive assistant in Nigeria did not. Same me, same role, both right. That is contextual intelligence: the ability to understand the room you are actually standing in rather than assuming every room operates by the same code.

Technology has not only collapsed the distance between people, it has institutionalised informality. Mailchimp and a thousand automated systems now greet all of us by our first names, so the casual register has quietly become the corporate default. And that too is a context to read, because in bespoke work, in luxury, in any business built on relationship, addressing people the way they expect to be addressed is not stiffness. It is intelligence. Business intelligence.

Culture

And some of those codes run deep. A young woman raised overseas comes home to meet her prospective mother-in-law and calls her by her first name — perfectly normal where she grew up, but somewhere in Lagos, an auntie has nearly fallen off her chair. An Igbo young man meets his Yoruba girlfriend’s family, greets everyone warmly, but doesn’t dobale. A young woman visits her future in-laws and never thinks to enter the kitchen and ask, “Can I help with anything?” Is she disrespectful? Not necessarily. But she may be culturally illiterate in that particular room, and that’s different.

I remember another young professional who had always addressed an older woman formally. Mrs This, Mrs That. Then they had a disagreement, and suddenly Mrs This became First Name. Just like that. I found it fascinating, because apparently the distinction did mean something after all. The change in address was being used to communicate a change in regard. So perhaps we understand these codes more than we sometimes admit. Names communicate relationships. Titles can communicate regard. And familiarity can communicate intimacy — but it can also communicate something else entirely.

Connection

Technology has collapsed the distance between us, and mostly I think that’s wonderful. Young professionals Today have access my generation could scarcely have imagined: mentors, CEOs, founders, global colleagues, people whose books they read, and people decades ahead of them. WhatsApp, Zoom and social media place everybody within apparent reach. We prize connection now. We prize accessibility, vulnerability, authenticity, and being real, and I would not trade all of that for the stiffness of an earlier era. But accessibility can create the illusion that the relationship has caught up with access. It hasn’t always.

And yet older generations need to understand the other side of this too, because we can become so preoccupied with being accorded respect that we make genuine connection impossible. If every interaction with someone younger requires them to continually perform your seniority back to you, you may get deference, but you may lose the person. I’ve seen it in workplaces. I’ve seen it in families. And increasingly, I think both generations have some adjusting to do.

Courage

This is where I refuse to join the chorus of “this generation”. I want younger people to have voices. My father was a Federal High Court judge, and growing up in our home, we were allowed to disagree. You could take a position — but you’d better be able to explain why, and you had to remain open to the possibility that somebody else had the better argument. That shaped how I later led.

Building Fine & Country West Africa, I sometimes watched younger members of my team make a perfectly sensible point, only for someone more senior to offer another view. Suddenly it was “Okay, sir” and “Okay, ma.” And I would ask: what happened to the argument you believed five minutes ago? I’ve always believed in the superior argument, wherever it comes from. Age does not automatically give you the better argument. Neither, by the way, does youth.

Experience remains enormously valuable — there are things you understand after thirty years that you simply cannot understand after three. But experience is no longer the only currency in the room. The younger person may understand the technology better, may be closer to the customer, and may see a cultural shift you’ve missed. Sometimes the 25-year-old genuinely has the better argument. The older leader needs enough security to hear it, and the younger professional needs enough judgement to know how to make it.

And perhaps that is where the new rules of respect across generations begin.

Context. Culture. Connection. Courage.

Read the context, understand the culture, build genuine connection, and have the courage to use your voice.

Dear young professional, learning to read the room will take you further than cleverness alone. Dear older leader, we must learn to read it too. Because the goal cannot be to recreate a world in which younger people know their place and never challenge us, nor should progress require us to pretend that culture, age, relationship and context suddenly mean nothing.

There is something wiser available to us: to be confident without being careless, respectful without becoming voiceless, experienced without becoming rigid, and accessible without assuming intimacy. To know when the room calls for Mrs, Mr, Chairman, Aunty, initials — or simply Udo. And to be secure enough, on both sides, to have the conversation when we get it wrong.

Because perhaps the people who will navigate this changing world best will not be those who insist that their generation’s rulebook is the correct one. They will be the ones who can move intelligently between them — and every now and again, when necessary, send a dear friend a message saying, “By the way… when did I become Udo to you?”