Gen Z and Millennials Are Walking Away from Management. Should We Be Worried?
- Brew Baritugo
- 24 hours ago
- 3 min read
You’ve probably seen the stat by now: 75 percent of Gen Z workers don’t want to be managers. At first glance, it looks like a crisis. Who’s going to lead the future of work if no one wants the job?
But let’s pause.
What if the problem isn’t the people, but the picture we’ve painted of what leadership actually looks like?
The Problem Isn’t Ambition. It’s the Model.
Contrary to the eye rolls and stereotypes, this generation is full of ambition. They want to grow. They want impact. They want to lead. But they don’t want to be middle managers stuck in bureaucratic sandwich roles with burnout on one side and disengaged teams on the other.
In Adobe’s 2023 Future Workforce Study, three out of four Gen Z respondents said they weren’t interested in becoming people managers. Deloitte’s latest survey echoes this. Young professionals aren’t seeing management as a step up. They’re seeing it as a step away from the life they want.
Why?
Because traditional management often means more stress, more admin, more emotional labor, and fewer boundaries. You’re expected to be the coach, the cop, the crisis manager, and sometimes the therapist. All without enough training or support.
That’s not leadership. That’s exhaustion dressed up in a title.
The Current State of Management Is… Unappealing
We keep telling people that becoming a manager is the ultimate badge of success. But when you ask managers how they’re doing, many will quietly admit they’re not okay.
In one Harvard Business Review study, over 60 percent of frontline managers reported feeling burnt out. In hybrid or remote settings, it’s even worse. Managers are being asked to uphold culture, drive performance, resolve conflict, and handle mental health concerns — all while being accountable for business outcomes they barely influence.
Now pair that with Gen Z’s values: balance, boundaries, authenticity, freedom. You start to see the misalignment.
They’re not lazy. They’re not entitled. They’re just not interested in inheriting a broken system.
What Happens When Nobody Wants the Job?
This isn’t just a succession planning issue. It’s a cultural fault line.
If younger talent opts out of management, companies will see a growing gap in leadership pipelines. That slows down internal mobility. It makes teams more dependent on external hires. It creates silos between individual contributors and the leadership bench.
Worse, when employees don’t see leaders they relate to — in values, mindset, or communication — they disengage. And disengagement is expensive. Gallup estimates it costs companies $7.8 trillion globally.
All this from a job nobody wants.
Here’s Where It Gets Interesting
Some companies are already rewriting the playbook.
Atlassian launched dual career paths where employees can grow as individual contributors without managing anyone. You could lead innovation and strategy without handling performance reviews or vacation requests. This helped retain top talent who wanted influence without the drama.
In the Philippines, a BPO firm found that newly promoted supervisors were quitting within a year. They introduced interim team leads who handled mentoring without formal disciplinary authority. This gave employees a taste of leadership before committing fully. Attrition dropped and more high-potential employees expressed interest in people roles.
A fintech company in Singapore tried rotational leadership. Team members took turns running meetings, resolving blockers, and reporting up. It made leadership a skill, not a title. The best part? It exposed hidden leaders who would have never applied for the job.
How Do We Fix This? Start by Making Leadership Worth Wanting Again
Stop romanticizing the manager role. Start humanizing it.
Let’s break down leadership into parts. Not everyone wants to manage people. Some want to design systems. Some want to solve problems. Some want to tell stories. Build career paths around those strengths.
Give people the tools before you give them the title. Leadership should feel like the next level of purpose, not punishment.
Normalize influence without authority. Let high-performing individuals lead projects, coach peers, represent the team — without needing to manage a headcount.
Most importantly, ask your people what kind of leadership matters to them. And listen like you mean it.
Final Thought
The next generation doesn’t hate leadership. They just hate what it has become.
If we want them to lead, we have to give them something worth leading.
Not a promotion. Not a title.
A mission.
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