Dear Reader ,
Let me start with a number that caught my attention.
More than half of Gen Z professionals say they don't want to become managers. Not "someday, maybe." No. Sixty-nine percent of them say the job is too much stress for too little reward.
Now, the easy thing, the thing I've heard from many professionals when they hear this is this: We shake our heads and say, "This generation just doesn't want to work."
But can I offer you a different reading? Because I don't think that's it at all.
Here's what I think is actually happening.
Gen Zs watched us and made a deduction.
They watched a generation of managers be the first to reply and the last to log off.
They watched us absorb everyone's stress and have nowhere to put our own.
They saw the always-on, all-responsibility, little-support version of the job and they did the quiet maths.
They decided the package, as it's currently sold, isn't worth it.
And while many people have called it laziness. I believe it's a review; and honestly, a fair one.
So what does this have to do with you, today, on your team?
This. There's a second number from the same season that I can't stop thinking about. Roughly 56% of Gen Z workers now use AI to figure out how to talk to a boss, they'll rehearse a hard conversation, a salary ask, a piece of pushback, with ChatGPT before they bring it to a human.
Let that simmer
Your sharpest team member would rather practise a difficult conversation with a robot than walk the few steps to your desk.
When I first read that, my instinct was to feel a little sad for them. But the longer I sat with it, the more I realised the harder question was about us. Because a chatbot has one quality many of us, on a stressed Tuesday, do not: it never sighs. It never makes you feel small for not having it all figured out. It's available, patient, and completely safe.
The gap, in other words, usually isn't their courage. It's their access. And access is something a manager controls.
Now here's where I want to be careful, because I'm not saying you're the problem. Most of us never set out to be unapproachable. We inherited and absorbed The "manager distance" without choosing it. It just felt like what a serious manager was supposed to be.
But here's the thing about an inherited habit: once you can see it, it becomes a choice.
So let me give you the door-opener I use, the actual words. The next time someone on your team is clearly stuck but circling, try this: say "You don't need a finished thought to come to me. Bring me the rough version, shaping it together is literally my job."
It sounds small, but it isn't. What it tells your team is that the price of entry is not perfection. That "I don't know yet" is welcome here. That your door doesn't only open for polished, completed things.
Do that consistently, and something will shift. The rehearsing will stop, the early warnings will start reaching you while they're still small, and slowly, you'll become easier to talk to than the chatbot, which, in this particular year, is no small thing.
Because here's what I've come to believe about the whole "Gen Z won't lead" conversation. They're not anti-ambition. They're not allergic to responsibility. They're refusing the version of leadership we made normal, and waiting, whether they say it out loud or not, to be shown a better one.
That better version doesn't come from a policy or a town hall meeting. It comes from one manager, on one team, making the job look like something worth wanting.
That manager can be you.
The mindset to hold this week: You can't argue someone into wanting a job that looks exhausting. You can only show them a version worth choosing. Gen Zs are not refusing to lead, take ownership or go up the ladder, they're refusing what they've seen. So let them see something better.
One small thing to try this week: Pick the one person on your team who's gone a little quiet. Don't summon them for a "serious chat." Just invite them for a chat. Let them know that they don't need a finished thought to come to you, they can bring you the messy version." Then watch what they bring you over the next two weeks.
Now talk to me: Hit reply and tell me when you were coming up, what made a manager feel safe to be honest with?
I read every reply, and your stories shape what I write next.
Still learning,
Eyitemi
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