Is Gen Z consciously rejecting your organisation's leadership culture?
- David Martin
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Career paths follow a well-trodden route, right? Work hard, get promoted, lead a team and ultimately progress to ever more senior roles.
Well, Gen Z seems to be rewriting that story. A recent survey by global recruitment firm Robert Walters found that 52 percent of Gen Z professionals did not want to take up middle management roles.
This finding introduces us to a curious new phrase that is gaining popularity – the notion of ‘conscious unbossing’. It reflects a choice to avoid being a manager, not due to a lack of talent or effort but due to a fundamentally different view of what success looks like.
Gen Z has seen older colleagues handle long hours, restructuring and people problems in middle management roles and a significant proportion believe that their effort does not lead to a clear payoff. The Robert Walters survey further highlights that 69 percent of Gen Z workers see middle management jobs as high stress and low reward which influences how they think about the future.
Many also prefer roles where they focus on their own work. The same survey notes that 72 percent of Gen Z employees want to grow as individual contributors. They want to build skills, strengthen their expertise and work with independence. Leading a team isn’t part of that plan in the way it used to be.
Another recent study, this time by Deloitte, similarly found that only 6 percent2 of Gen Z workers say their primary career goal is to achieve a leadership position. Whilst older generations may criticise Gen Z’s approach to work as entitled or lazy an alternative hypothesis might be that this generation has simply identified fundamental flaws in traditional workplace structures and cultures that previous generations accepted as immutable. And they’re not afraid to call it out.
Perhaps what we are seeing here is Gen Z rejecting a system where leadership often means more stress, longer hours and minimal work-life balance for incremental pay increases. These workplace expectations could actually correct outdated practices that harm productivity and employee well-being. Given that researchers at Forrester predict that 74 percent of the global workforce will be Gen Z by 2030, understanding their perspective isn’t optional it’s essential for organisational survival.
Many established senior managers may actually misunderstand Gen Z, misinterpreting their emphasis on values, mental health, flexibility, open communication and feedback as disengagement or lack of commitment. Gen Z’s view of what a modern workplace may be fundamentally at odds with ‘old school’ leadership approaches where empathy is often in short supply and working long-hours is simply expected.
If a Gen Z set to dominate the workforce within the next five years is less motivated by traditional incentives such as job security or long-term stability and more by flexibility, purpose-driven work, opportunities for growth and a supportive culture then it’s vital that today’s leadership gets with the game.
This inadequacy of ‘old-school’ talent-management and leadership models for engaging Gen Z simply underlines how much values and workplace expectations have shifted.
By clinging to these ‘old-school’ hierarchical management, rigid structures and traditional reward systems (long hours, narrow incentives) organisations risk high turnover, disengagement and fundamental failure to attract or retain Gen Z talent.
Conversely organisations that adapt by embracing empathy-driven leadership, flexibility, purpose-driven culture, diversity and personal development are more likely to succeed with the emerging workforce. These trends highlight the importance of promoting adaptive leadership styles, self-awareness, empathy, and flexibility - all of which may resonate strongly with both Gen Z and other generations.
At the end of the day leadership in the age of Gen Z will not be defined by command, status, or tradition but by a leader’s willingness to deepen their own self-awareness and evolve.
Coaching offers a powerful pathway for this growth, providing leaders with structured reflection, honest feedback and the tools to challenge their own assumptions. By engaging in coaching as an ongoing practice rather than a remedial intervention, leaders become more attuned to their own values and behaviours and are therefore better equipped to understand, motivate and engage a values-driven workforce. In doing so, they create environments where Gen Z can bring their full selves to work - not by demanding compliance but by inspiring trust, purpose and shared commitment.
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