Why Gen Z isn't aspiring to leadership roles (yet)

Recently over lunch with her fellow Generation Z workers at an Auckland law firm, 23-year-old Manawa Te Ahuru-Quinn quizzed them on their leadership aspirations in the workplace.

Something of a consensus emerged. Yes, they had aspirations for leadership within law but not at the pace or price that previous generations paid to reach those positions.

“It really again depends on how focused you are because I know for the generations above Gen Z, it was the goal to make partner by 30 and they pretty much work from 22 to 30 and just go for it and that was the goal,” says Te Ahuru-Quinn, a law clerk. The role of a partner is typically a senior lawyer with an ownership stake in the firm.

“...So who knows really, but maybe towards your 40s people will be looking at leadership roles, like partnerships.”

Related stories:

The sentiment of Te Ahuru-Quinn and her co-workers is one explanation for recent findings in an annual Deloitte survey that only six percent of Gen Z respondents stated they had leadership aspirations. The study considered Gen Z to be those turning between 19 and 30 years old this year.

A Deloitte spokesperson told RNZ’s Nine to Noon that this could partly be to do with the “age and stage of workers,” but also that top leaders might not make leadership roles appealing as the older generation juggles work and family while attempting to dodge burnout and toxic workplaces.

Nina Brown, 24, is the editor of the Otago University Students' Association weekly magazine Critic Te Ārohi. She reckons Gen Z are more interested in leadership positions outside of their career.

“There are plenty of students who are very involved in university clubs, with many on multiple executives in a volunteer capacity.”

That could be because entry-level jobs are not plentiful in New Zealand’s current economic climate so even getting on that first step of a traditional corporate ladder is difficult, she says.

Yet, even that breeding ground of future leaders is being pressured by the increasingly frantic schedules of students who don’t have the luxury of solely focusing on their studies and take a part-time job.

“Everyone is kind of just run off their feet right now... You can't really just depend on the student loan.”

Brown has graduated and her role at Critic Te Ārohi is full-time. She manages a team of about 25 students and works a 60-hour week during term time when the magazine is published. Brown will leave the role at the end of the year. A big reason is that editors traditionally only stay for a year or two. Another reason is she is envious of her friends who are not in leadership positions.

“A lot of them are kind of just working on living a happy life, building up some savings to maybe go travelling sometime soon.”

Brown has also learnt leadership can be isolating and have an impact on your relationship with those you are leading. That’s something Theo van de Klundert, 24, a final-year law student, has also found.

He has gravitated towards leadership positions, such as his role on Auckland Council’s Rainbow Communities Advisory Panel, since he was a teenager. Now, he is running for a position on the council’s Waitematā local board.

When it comes to queer leadership in the workplace, van de Klundert doesn’t see many role models above him. While he believes work places are more accommodating to the LGBTQIA+ community, that civil rights progress will take more time to mature and materialise with more queer workers in leadership positions.

However, recent setbacks, particularly surrounding trans people in the current political climate, might mean leadership positions for young queer staff are an unnecessary stress, he says.

“... leadership requires an extra degree of stepping up, an extra degree of stress and actually managing people’s emotions... and in a climate where rainbow identities are becoming more and more contentious, I think the buy-in to that type of step up and pressure can be very, very challenging.”

Gen Z is the most queer identifying generation on record. Yet, more than half of those in the rainbow community say they are closeted about their sexuality or gender identity in the workplace, says Martin King, a human resources expert and the director of Pride Pledge.

“I would ask, do we see ourselves represented in leadership roles and board rooms? No.

“Do we see that these environments are safe and inclusive for us to be ourselves? No.”

Gen Z’s apparent withdrawal from leadership goals also coincides with the implosion of the Girlboss era of the 2010s. Girlboss thought leaders like entrepreneur Sophia Amoruso and former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg painted a narrative that workers, particularly women, could have a career and family or an exciting personal life if only they hustled more. However, towards the end that decade several female leaders were ousted from their own companies over accusations of racism and abuse within their workplaces.

“[Gen Z] have been handed a legacy or an offer which isn’t flash, where they’ve watched their parents burn out, try to do it all and still not have enough money,” says Alicia McKay, a millennial who grew up in the foster care system before getting an MBA and establishing herself as an author, consultant and thought leader in the local government space.

“I suspect there are different questions that they're asking themselves about what they want out of their work and out of their life. They're not buying into the same shit that we were.”

However, there are young people involved in local politics who are ambitious, passionate and driven, says McKay. Her own daughter, who had a front-row seat to her mother’s challenging road to success, is aspiring to be a lawyer with her own law firm, to leave a positive legacy and start something new in the world.

“I think that's really interesting too, because I think at her age I would have been much more driven by the prospect of status and additional money.”

Numerous studies show that Gen Z has entrepreneurial aspirations with a large majority desiring to start their own company and be their own boss. That’s positive news for Greg Durkin, the director of Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation, which plugs trade apprentices into the construction industry.

About 90 percent of them are working within a business with fewer than 20 staff or smaller, where leadership responsibilities are unavoidable. Many of those apprentices will go on to start their own business or operate as a sole trader. Few go on to big construction corporations with a ladder to climb.

Gen Z’s search for a work-life balance might be another reason that apprenticeships are in strong demand.

“A lot of our employers take the opportunity to reward, whether that be events or through fishing trips or whatever that might look like.”