To me it is clear that Age != Experience. Early in my career I have worked with many people, while being much older, were not as emotionally intelligent as I was. I have also worked with many people who were younger than I was who were more emotionally intelligent. That is what leadership mainly boils down to.
Also, technical decisions should not come from the top. A leader should look at what something puts together and say "yea you covered your bases, go for it."
My current TL is older than me by a big gap but my experience on many technical things out-ways theirs and so they defer to me. Their experience on the social side of things is far better than mine and I always defer to them for planning and comms advice.
Basically: Age is a very poor proxy for how competent a leader is at running a team, making technical decisions, and many other factors that come to building large products. Selecting by age and putting the oldest person in change of a project is a horrible idea. Case in point: most governments are gerontocracy. How confident in the wise decision making powers of our political leadership?
Also, technical decisions should not come from the top. A leader should look at what something puts together and say "yea you covered your bases, go for it."
My current TL is older than me by a big gap but my experience on many technical things out-ways theirs and so they defer to me. Their experience on the social side of things is far better than mine and I always defer to them for planning and comms advice.
Basically: Age is a very poor proxy for how competent a leader is at running a team, making technical decisions, and many other factors that come to building large products. Selecting by age and putting the oldest person in change of a project is a horrible idea. Case in point: most governments are gerontocracy. How confident in the wise decision making powers of our political leadership?