This is the first entry in our newest four-part series, on the future of leadership.
For supposedly being so bossy, Millennials and Gen Zers sure don’t like to be in charge. At least, that’s one conclusion to take away from recent surveys about America’s two youngest generations and their experiences in the workforce. (And why we need to take a look at this generation’s trend of reluctant leaders.)
Take, for example, the Deloitte Global 2022 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, which polled 14,808 members of Gen Z and 8,412 millennials in 46 countries. In a list of reasons for why respondents chose to work for their current organization, an “opportunity to progress/grow in my career/take on a leadership role” tied for fourth in importance, alongside “positive workplace culture.”
The first? “Good work/life balance.”
With “Leaders” Like These
Other stats from the Deloitte report offer an eye-opening perspective on how Millennials and Gen Zers view the current economy and those in charge of it. (Spoiler alert: not very positively).
Twenty-nine percent of Gen Zers and 36 percent of millennials said “cost of living (e.g., housing, transport, bills, etc.)” was their biggest concern, while almost half of each cohort lives paycheck to paycheck and “worr[ies] they won’t be able to cover their expenses.” A quarter of Gen Zers and nearly a third of millennials are worried they won’t be able to retire comfortably.
Bring Out the Best in Your Reluctant Leaders
In a 2022 article for BBC’s Worklife series (titled, revealingly, “Why Gen Z workers are already so burned out”), psychotherapist and Pepperdine University professor Kim Hollingdale offers a similarly alarming assessment.
“[Hollingdale] believes that Gen Z has ‘the worst collection of stressors’ among workers right now—from a lack of power at work to financial instability, the normalization of hustle culture and an inability to unwind.
“And although all generations might be juggling high volumes of work, Gen Z has the least ‘workplace capital,’ which means less power to set boundaries and say no to tasks.”
If she’s right, who would want to take on even more responsibility on top of this? (That’s a rhetorical question.) Maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising, then, that the word “lead” has become a four-letter word for too many younger workers.
Obviously, not all younger employees are so hesitant to step up and lead. And while the country’s broader workplace economy may feel dispiriting for many Millennials and Gen Zers, that’s not necessarily a reflection of poor management or a lack of compassion on an individual company level. There are organizations out there that younger generations respect and are excited about.
Be that as it may, it’d be a mistake to dismiss the concerns so many younger workers have about current leadership. Ignore these at your own risk.
Did you know…
Source: APQC |
Managers Don’t Care
Aka, leaders are all about the money, all the time. Study after study confirms that millennials and Gen Zers, more than any previous generation, want management to give a hoot. About them, yes—but also about society at large, even if just in a small way.
Rightly or wrongly, to so many in these generations, a job isn’t just a job. Potential leaders want more than just a pay raise—they want purpose.
Take the example of Patagonia, who in the mid-1990s converted its entire sportswear line (30 percent of the company’s business) from conventional to organic cotton to preserve employees’ and customers’ health. (In fact, this daring decision is the focus of a chapter in my recent book, To Be Honest.)
They didn’t just pay lip service to “doing good”—they actually did it, and at considerable risk to their bottom line. When junior team members see these types of sincere, socially minded actions, they feel inspired to grow with their company. Indeed, It’s not a mystery why Patagonia is consistently ranked as one of the most desirable places to work.
“Survival of the fittest is not the same as survival of the best. Leaving leadership development up to chance is foolish.”
– Morgan W. McCall, Professor Emeritus of Management and Organization, USC Marshall School of Business
Hierarchies Feel too Rigid
One of the biggest developments in the white-collar workplace—arguably even more significant than the rapid adoption of Zoom after the start of the pandemic—is the widespread use of instant messaging tools such as Slack.
This is especially common in the tech field and adjacent industries that rely heavily on apps and software to reach clients and customers, like marketing (i.e., the kinds of companies most likely to be staffed with younger people).
Whether these technologies are driving an emphasis on collaboration or are a response to it is up for debate. But the result is a workforce that is increasingly accustomed to working together, as peers, on projects.
The authoritative, top-down style of so many old-school (read: Boomer) managers is well outside the comfort zone of this group; fewer people want to be The Decider when they can just be The Friendly Collaborator.
In 2020, business professors Chen Zhang, Jennifer D. Nahrgang, Susan (Sue) Ashford, and D. Scott DeRue published a paper about leadership in the journal Organization Science.
They found that among respondents they surveyed, words like “resentment,” “competition,” “blame,” “aggressive,” and “pushy” were commonly associated with leadership. With the exception of “competition” (which could go either way), all of these characterizations, of course, are negative.
They also confirm the value of a less hierarchical, more collaborative culture is among millennials and Gen Zers.
The Price of Management Is (Too) High
For many younger team members, the costs of a new set of responsibilities may not seem to be worth the benefits. This is especially the case in areas with high costs of living, where salaries for all but the highest echelons of an organization may not fully cover expenses and savings.
Doubly so for young parents, who must also cover child care (while having less time to put in extra hours) or whether one partner is out of the workforce.
The old model of the breadwinner dad and child-raising mom couldn’t be more outdated among millennials, a generation that boasts higher percentages of women than men in college, medical school, and law school. Not to mention, millennial men consistently say they value sharing household responsibilities more equitably (even if this doesn’t happen in practice).
All of which is to say, many millennials and Gen Zers just aren’t that impressed with a fancy title —unless it comes with a (big) salary bump, that is.
A 33-year-old millennial manager put it this way in a 2022 CNBC article she was interviewed for: “Being a manager, it’s OK. But it affords me nothing. I don’t have any real additional perks that my direct reports don’t have. My salary is a little higher, fine, but I have to work a lot longer. Honestly, the title is all fluff at the end of the day.”
Tip How much have you really thought about your plan for cultivating future leadership in your organization? It’s okay if the answer is “not much,” or even “never”; what matters more is whether or not you plan to do anything about it. Set aside some time—even just an hour or so should be enough—to grade yourself and your organization. Have you helped create an environment that will reliably foster future leaders? If so, in what ways? Or is there a lot of work to do? |
Mentorship Is Rare—and Getting Rarer
A 2022 article in WorkLife raised the specter that current trends in leadership development (namely, the lack of it) may be ushering in a “lost generation” of managers.
While mentorship has been increasingly hard to come by, the rise of remote work across so many different industries has exacerbated the problem, the piece argued, noting that “opportunities to learn through osmosis, either in the office or at work socials, are already dwindling.”
One of the experts interviewed, Rafael Guper, COO of e-learning provider UJJI, said he worries that this shift “could be genuinely devastating for many businesses. . . . Critical to most business’ success is ‘work fundamentals,’ or in other words, soft skills.”
This means that a growing number of tomorrow’s leaders—on whom we are all betting our futures—are not getting sufficient investment or preparation in their leadership development despite their hunger for it. Nor are they even looking for reasonable alternatives (that is, if they even knew where to find them).
That means more and more employees will be arriving into positions of greater responsibility earlier in their careers while being less and less prepared to succeed in leadership positions. No doubt many are reluctant to be put in such a position in the first place.
It’s not a huge mystery why so many choose not to lead if they can help it. Reluctant leadership isn’t a phenomenon that developed out of thin air, but the predictable result of larger trends, some out of our control but many within it.
For the next entry in this series, we’ll look at ways leaders can cultivate leadership pipelines and make leadership positions more attractive. Stay tuned!
Help the Next Generation of Reluctant Leaders, With Training
You’re an effective leader and excellent at managing your team. But let’s face it: You’re looking for new leaders to bring up through the ranks, though no one is coming forward.
This is where modeling excellent leadership comes into play.
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