How Bad Bosses and Broken Development Systems Drive Millennials and Gen Z Away from Leadership

Your best employees are watching their managers fail, and they’re taking notes.

In part one of our series, we explored how Millennials and Gen Z are redefining success and rejecting traditional C-suite roles. But there’s another factor our Stanton Chase consultants encounter daily: these generations are being actively pushed away from leadership by their current experiences with management. 

The Management Gap That Breaks Trust

The Deloitte study exposes a gap that we hear about constantly in candidate interviews: while 59% of Gen Zs and 57% of millennials believe managers should provide guidance and support, only 33% of Gen Zs and 32% of millennials say they experience this from their managers. 

This disconnect between expectations and reality influences how young professionals view leadership opportunities. In our succession planning work, we frequently hear candidates say they don’t want to become what they see. When they witness their own managers failing to provide support, they question whether they want to step into similar roles. INSEAD’s multigenerational research reveals what happens next: 58% of Gen Z workers cite stress as what makes leadership roles most unattractive, with 74% of Gen Y professionals in the U.S. associating leadership with negative stress levels. They look at their current leaders and see burnout rather than success. 

When our consultants conduct leadership assessments, we often discover that organizations’ best technical performers are being promoted without proper management training or support. This creates a vicious cycle: bad management experiences reduce leadership aspirations, which reduces the pool of potential future managers. 

The Learning Revolution Companies Are Missing

The same generations rejecting leadership roles are also rejecting how companies try to develop leaders. Recent research from TalentLMS found that 72% of Gen Z workers are engaging in self-driven learning, significantly higher than other generations, and 68% of employees improved workplace skills outside of training provided by their employer in 2023. 

We often see this firsthand. Corporate leadership programs built around structured rotations, classroom training, and waiting your turn directly conflict with how these generations actually learn. According to LinkedIn, 76% of Gen Z learners believe that learning is the solution to a successful career, and this generation watches over 50% more hours of online courses than any generation before them. 

One Gen Z respondent to Deloitte’s survey captured this generation’s frustration: “I don’t want to pigeonhole myself within the first few years, no matter if it’s a very good company or a very good salary. If I’m going to be pursuing my career and there’s no programs in place internally to help employees grow, then it’s not worth it to me. No matter the company name.” 

The Economic Reality Check

Executive teams often misinterpret younger workers’ career decisions as lack of ambition, but our consultants understand the economic pressures at play. Nearly half of Gen Z (48%) and millennials (46%) report feeling financially insecure, with over half living paycheck to paycheck. Additionally, PwC’s research confirms that globally, only 38% of workers have money left over at the end of the month, down from 47%. 

When we work with clients on compensation structures, we highlight how this financial pressure influences career decisions in ways that older executives may not fully understand. Many young professionals are building recession-proof skills rather than climbing hierarchical ladders. The Deloitte research shows that cost of living tops the list of concerns for both generations for the fourth year running. 

This economic reality explains why traditional leadership development models of lengthy rotations, delayed gratification, and “paying your dues” don’t resonate. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, you can’t afford to wait years for a promotion that might never come. 

Skills for a New Era

These generations are prioritizing different skills entirely, too. The Deloitte research shows that 86% of Gen Z and 85% of millennials believe soft skills like communication, leadership, and empathy are highly required for career advancement, even more so than technical GenAI skills, despite their heavy adoption of AI technology. 

Meanwhile, 57% of Gen Z and 56% of Millennials already use GenAI in their daily work, but 63% of Gen Z and 65% of Millennials worry that AI will eliminate jobs. When we help organizations plan for future leadership needs, we note that tomorrow’s leaders will need to guide AI transformation while managing workforce anxiety about automation, exactly the kind of challenge that requires the empathy and soft skills these generations are already developing on their own. 

Companies are using outdated development methods to teach outdated leadership models to a generation that’s already moved on. At Stanton Chase, we help our clients redesign their leadership assessment and development programs to align with how these generations actually learn and what they actually need to know. 

If you’re experiencing a talent development crisis or seeing your high-potentials disengage from leadership tracks, contact your nearest Stanton Chase office. We can help you build assessment and development programs that actually resonate with the leaders you need for tomorrow. 

This is part two of a three-part series on Millennials and Gen Z reshaping executive leadership. Read part one here on why they’re rejecting the C-suite. Read part three here on building leadership models that work. 

About the Author

Valeria Cox is a Managing Partner at Stanton Chase Santiago and serves as the Regional Leader for the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging practice group in the LATAM region. She is also a marketing executive with over 20 years of experience in various industries, consistently delivering value in strategic planning, marketing research, consumer behavior, CX, and loyalty planning.