Gen Z prioritizes meaning over leadership, and experts say it’s time to rethink the model
Since Gen Z entered the world stage, they have completely redefined different aspects of the workforce—one of those aspects is climbing the corporate ladder.
According to Deloitte’s latest survey on Gen Z and millennials, only 6 per cent of respondents said reaching high-level corporate positions was a primary career goal. While they remain ambitious and financially driven, many no longer see climbing the corporate ladder as the ultimate achievement.
A 2024 study by Robert Walters echoed this sentiment: over 57 per cent of Gen Z professionals in Canada said they didn’t want to become middle managers.
Karl Moore, an associate professor of strategy and organization at McGill University, finds these results somewhat surprising. “‘What is leadership, and do I want to be a leader?’ is a bit more in question for this generation,” he says.
He says that organizations need to look at leadership differently if they want the generation to participate.
“The world's gone nuts, and in a [nuts] world, some of the lessons from the past no longer apply,” he adds.
This hesitation toward leadership isn’t exclusive to Gen Z , says Giselle Kovary, head of learning and development at Optimus SBR and a longtime generational researcher.
She says organizations were voicing similar concerns decades ago.
“I remember years ago having clients and organizations saying we're really concerned about our young people. It might have been younger Gen Xers, or millennials.’ We're not sure we can recruit them, ...we're not sure we can engage them. And then when we do get them...we're not even sure they want to get promoted,” Kovary says.
“They had done a survey, and less than 10% of their workforce had wanted to go into leadership at that time.”
The friction, she says, comes from the fact that the work world is being defined by one leadership model or generational mindset—and younger generations are pushing back.
“I think this is [sending] us a warning signal or a warning bell to leaders: how you keep pushing leadership, what you expect of leaders, the model—young generations are not going to accept this,” Kovary adds.
But why is this generation rejecting these roles? According to the Deloitte report, these generations—especially Gen Z—prioritize finding work that is meaningful, considers their well-being and provides financial security. The report refers to this as the ‘trifecta’.
The Robert Walters study supports this view, finding that many believe middle management roles offer too much stress for too little reward.
Moore notes that Gen Z has completely different values and perspectives on the workforce compared to previous generations.
“When I talk about these things, I show them a bumper sticker that was in my book Generation Y: ‘He who dies with the most toys, wins—and that's quite a horrifying thought for them,” he says.
He explains that the Boomer generation seemed to measure success, for example, by the things they had—such as the cars they drove and the kind of clothes they wore.
Moore says many students he has worked with often prioritize finding meaningful work, especially in today’s environment of economic instability and climate anxiety.
He adds that this generation is more openly anxious, more financially burdened, and more skeptical of traditional authority.
Deloitte’s report on Gen Z and millennial attitudes last year found that 62 per cent of Gen Z respondents reported feeling anxious about climate change and wanted governments and businesses to take climate action. Some even left jobs to find better alignment with their values.
“There’s the concern about the environment… treatment of minorities—those kinds of social concerns are something they think about and pay attention to. And that's part of meaningful work: ‘Am I going to make the world a better place?’” Moore explains.
A study published by the University of Waterloo’s Work-Learn Institute (WxL) found that many Gen Zs want to work in organizations that support equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). They also seek jobs that offer work-life balance and security. The report identified hedonism, benevolence, and self-direction as the generation’s top values.
Moore and Kovary say Gen Z’s reluctance to lead may also stem, in part, from how they’ve seen leadership modelled in the past.
“They see corrupt leaders, they see despots around the world,” Moore says. “It's going against a more positive view of leadership and a more servant, sacrificial view of leadership.”
He says this leads them to not want to be like that themselves, which is reflected in the survey where many felt their managers were missing the mark.
Gen Z and millennials believed managers' key roles were to provide guidance, support, and motivation, as well as mentorship and help set boundaries around work-life balance. However, many felt their leaders only focused on “overseeing day-to-day tasks,” according to Deloitte’s report.
“Younger generations are not going to accept this idea [that] we martyr ourselves for our organization's... the idea that leadership means you're constantly accessible, that you're supposed to be, perhaps, putting your work ahead of other interests .” Kovary adds.
“Gen Zs are saying, no thanks.”
To draw younger workers into leadership, both experts say organizations must reframe what leadership means.
Kovary says that starts by demystifying the concept.
“We need to be clear for people—what do we mean by leadership? In some organizations, that's going to mean that you get really involved in some of the social aspects of work, or [get] involved in committee work,” she says.
She also notes the need to reconsider how career growth is structured.
In many organizations, leadership follows a pyramid approach—an “up and out” model. “Climbing the corporate ladder—it was literally you're moving up [as] you became a people leader,” Kovary says. Instead, companies can explore horizontal paths that reflect broader definitions of leadership.
However, the biggest aspect, she says, is transparency when it comes to discussing leadership.
“We have to be transparent with people around us—what it looks like to succeed here—and then we give them a choice,” Kovary says.
“This is what career growth looks like in this organization. These are the skills and competencies that we value. This is how you're going to be rated, and if you want to get promoted, then that's what you'll have to do to be a leader here.”
Moore adds that reverse mentoring could help bridge generational gaps and bring Gen Z into leadership conversations.
“Provide some leadership training, but provide them opportunities to take on a bit of leadership... being involved in the strategy, saying, ‘Hey, what do you think?’” He adds.
Moore warns that without engagement, companies risk a long-term leadership vacuum. “It might mean that boomers may stay around even longer and get even more dated,” he says.
“You may have to keep the leadership you already have there in place, but that's a poor solution to the problem.”
He emphasizes it's time to help younger generations get excited about a new kind of leadership.
