Gen Z-ers are becoming bosses. What it means for everyone else

It was an unwritten agreement for decades: do good work, keep your head down, stay faithful, and you will eventually be rewarded.

Generation Z does not respect these rules. The group, which includes people born between 1997 and 2012, has its own workplace expectations.

“The future of work is heading toward a collision point between the expectations of Gen Z and the old guard of company culture,” said Anthony Onesto, author of “The New Employee Contract: How to Find, Keep and Elevate Gen Z Talent” and vice president at performance management software company 15Five.

“Generation Z isn’t afraid to challenge norms,” Onesto said. “Their approach to work, boundaries and transparency rewrites the rules. » Meanwhile, he said, AI is intensifying pressure from boards and investors who want smaller staffs and higher margins.

But leaders should be wary, he added. Cutting too much doesn’t just reduce costs: it risks eroding the company’s entire customer base. This shift is not just about technology or demographics, he said, but a fundamental shift in how organizations create and maintain value.

“Companies that ignore these realities will struggle to retain both talent and customers,” Onesto said. “The organizations that survive will be those that recognize that people are not just resources to be leveraged, but are the heart of the business itself. Gen Z’s demands for purpose and flexibility are not a passing trend; they are the new benchmark for what a healthy workplace looks like in this era.”

Why Gen Z leadership is different

With the oldest members of Generation Z now being 29 years old, it is increasingly common for them to move into management positions, in addition to founding their own businesses.

This young generation attracts a lot of criticism.

“Generation Z really is the hardest to work with – even managers of their own generation say they are difficult,” headlines a 2025 article in Fortune.

Sometimes “different” seems difficult. Perhaps it’s less about Gen Z being difficult and more about the fact that they are shaped by different conditions, including:

• Nearly unlimited access to instant information
• The Covid pandemic and remote working
• A certain economic instability and the failure of institutions
• Constant technological change and the emergence of AI

“Many Gen X $TWTR leaders were shaped by scarcity, bureaucracy and delayed recognition,” said Robert Bates, business strategist and author of “Why We Can’t Stop Caring.” “They learned to read the room, deal with ambiguity, and survive systems they didn’t fully trust but still believed they had to navigate.” »

Generation Z, he said, is entering the workforce in very different ways. “They came of age in the public feedback loops,” Bates said. “They are more accustomed to immediacy – immediate access to information, immediate comparison, and immediate visibility of inconsistencies. This does not automatically make them wiser, but it does make them less patient with symbolic leadership.”

Older leaders might interpret it as a right, but Gen Z would say it’s simply a requirement for logic and clarity. Generation Z expects to know Why decisions are made.

The coming tension within leadership

“The coming tension is not just about older leaders versus younger workers; it’s a clash of two leadership training environments,” Bates said.

Most organizations will have to deal with this tension over the coming years.

“Gen Z has often been taught that credibility comes second to endurance,” Bates said. “Generation Z is more likely to believe that credibility now needs to be readable. »

That difference matters, he said.

“A generation X The CEO may think, “You earn trust over time. » A Gen Z leader may think, “If the system is opaque, politically distorted, or emotionally tone deaf, why should I trust it long enough to gain anything within?” » Bates said. “It’s not just impatience. In many cases, it is a rational response to the world they have inherited.

People seem to be overcomplicating Gen Z’s desire for more transparency, said Brennan Kolar, the 28-year-old founder of tax consulting and financial information firm Atlas CPA Index.

“This generation leads with an open mind because salary data and company reviews are available on their phones before their first interview,” Kolar said. “They don’t understand why a manager would hide information from a team that can Google $GOOGL anyway. Many top leaders have built their authority on being people who know things that others don’t, and I don’t know how many of them are willing to give that up.

Successful companies, Kolar said, publish pay ranges before anyone asks for them. “They explain the reasoning behind a policy instead of citing how it has always been implemented. Companies that get it wrong continue to follow guidance the same way they did in 2014 and wonder why people leave after 18 months.”

For today’s leaders, adapting to the influx of Gen Z leaders and workers starts with reframing the many stereotypes about them, Onesto said.

“When older generations see laziness, entitlement or job hopping, what’s actually happening is ambitious boundary setting, a thirst for personal growth and a non-negotiable demand for work-life balance,” Onesto said. “Be curious and learn more about the generation before making assumptions or pigeonholing these people. What they’re asking for aren’t weaknesses; they’re asking for successful strategies that raise the bar for everyone.”

The future of the C-suite will “feel like a group discussion,” said Chris Bajda, founder of wedding retailer GroomsDay. “Companies that continue to cling to rigid hierarchical structures are losing younger talent to flatter, faster-paced organizations,” he said.

Bajda said he’s seen this happen in his industry, with suppliers giving Gen Z employees a seat at the strategic table earlier, being able to retain them longer and create better, more in-demand products.

“If you’re a current leader and you continue to treat your younger recruits like it takes five years for them to have a real opinion, you’re losing a lot of value,” he said. “You should give them [an opportunity] and see what happens.