Why Millennials and Gen Z Don’t Want to Lead: The C-Suite Crisis Ahead 

The world is facing an executive talent crisis that many organizations don’t see coming.  

The next generation of workers, the people who should be filling tomorrow’s C-suites, are systematically rejecting leadership roles.  

A marketing director turns down a VP promotion because it would require 60-hour weeks. A finance manager leaves a director track position for a startup, taking a pay cut for more meaningful work. These aren’t isolated incidents or generational quirks. They represent a complete reimagining of what leadership should look like, and they’re happening in companies across every industry and continent. 

The Leadership Pipeline Crisis is Already Here

The implications extend far beyond individual career choices. With Gen Z and millennials set to comprise 74% of the global workforce by 2030, their rejection of traditional leadership paths creates what we call a “leadership pipeline crisis.” Organizations that built their succession planning around hierarchical advancement are discovering that their most promising candidates are walking away from corner offices, rejecting promotions, and redefining success entirely. 

Deloitte’s latest research shows that only 6% of Gen Z workers say their primary career goal is reaching a leadership position. They’re actively rejecting the traditional climb to the C-suite. 

This rejection isn’t happening in isolation. Stanford research helps explain why, finding that Gen Z prefers collaborative or rotating leadership models over traditional hierarchical structures. The consequences are already visible: Gallup’s latest data shows engagement among younger millennials and Gen Z has fallen five percentage points, with only 35% now engaged at work. Meanwhile, McKinsey research warns that 90% of organizations will face meaningful skills gaps in coming years, partly because the talent they’re counting on doesn’t want the roles they’re offering.

This isn’t a temporary trend that will correct itself as these generations mature. The data suggests something more substantial and long-lasting: a complete reimagining of what leadership should look like, how leaders should be developed, and what motivates talented individuals to take on executive responsibilities. 

Why Traditional Leadership No Longer Appeals

The issue has nothing to do with lack of ambition. Millennials and Gen Z have simply redefined what success looks like. Where previous generations saw corner offices as the ultimate prize, Gen Z and millennials are pursuing what Deloitte terms the “trifecta“: meaningful work, financial security, and genuine well-being. 

As one millennial in Deloitte’s study put it: “The trifecta is flexibility, pay, and interest in work. And it’s very hard to get all three.” 

Traditional leadership roles, with their demands for long hours, constant availability, and hierarchical climbing, directly conflict with this trifecta. In fact, the modern workplace itself adds to this conflict. PwC’s Global Workforce Survey found that 44% of workers don’t understand why workplace changes need to happen, and over half feel there’s too much change happening at once. For generations seeking stability and meaning, the chaos of executive roles becomes even less appealing. When companies require leaders to sacrifice their well-being for advancement, talented individuals are simply choosing not to advance. 

The Management Gap That’s Making Things Worse

This rejection of leadership is compounded by poor management experiences that turn promising candidates away from ever wanting to manage others. The Deloitte study exposes a critical gap: 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 shapes how young professionals view leadership opportunities. When they see 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.

The lack of support compounds with the lack of development opportunities. One Gen Z respondent to Deloitte’s survey captured this 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.” 

When young professionals see their managers fail to provide meaningful development and support, they conclude that management roles are unappealing. This creates a vicious cycle: bad management experiences reduce leadership aspirations, which reduces the pool of potential future managers. 

The Economic Reality Behind Millennial and Gen Z Career Choices

Executive teams often misinterpret younger workers’ career decisions as lack of ambition, but economic pressures play a major role. 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%. Financial insecurity has become the norm rather than the exception. And the Deloitte research shows that cost of living tops the list of concerns for both generations for the fourth year running. 

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 simply climbing hierarchical ladders. They’re prioritizing immediate financial stability over potential future leadership roles that might not materialize or might come at too high a personal cost. 

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. 

Why Traditional Leadership Development Is Already Obsolete

Here’s what makes this crisis even more urgent: 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. 

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 key to a successful career, and this generation watches over 50% more hours of online courses than any generation before them. 

More importantly, they’re prioritizing different skills entirely. 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. 

This creates a double disconnect: companies are using outdated development methods to teach outdated leadership models to a generation that’s already moved on. 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. Future leaders will need to navigate 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. 

How Rejecting Old Leadership Models Creates New Opportunities

The values driving younger workers away from traditional leadership roles actually position them to build better organizations. They reject corner offices, but they bring exactly what companies need: the ability to work across differences, adapt quickly, and question outdated assumptions.

These generations watched companies fail because leadership teams all thought the same way. They saw organizations miss obvious market changes because everyone in charge had the same background and never questioned each other. Their rejection of traditional hierarchies comes from practical observation. They know competitive advantage comes from different perspectives challenging conventional thinking.

Younger workers already practice what management consultants preach: continuous learning, seeking diverse perspectives, and questioning traditional approaches. They want environments where different ways of thinking drive innovation. They value leaders who took unconventional paths because those leaders bring fresh perspectives. They want teams that look like their customer base because they’ve seen products fail when companies don’t understand their users. This isn’t about ideology. It’s about avoiding the groupthink that killed Blockbuster, Kodak, and countless other companies that couldn’t see change coming.

This change opens doors to previously locked-out talent. The traditional leadership pipeline was narrow: you had to relocate constantly, work extreme hours, and fit a specific mold. This wasn’t deliberate exclusion, just how the system worked. But it left talented people behind. Parents who needed flexibility. Technical experts who didn’t want to abandon their expertise for management. Career changers from different industries. People who learned through experience rather than elite MBA programs. All found themselves shut out of leadership tracks.

When younger generations demand flexibility and multiple pathways to leadership, they solve a problem companies have struggled with for years: accessing all available talent. Remove the 70-hour week requirement, and parents can lead. Create technical leadership tracks, and you keep your best experts. Value different types of experience, and you get leaders who understand your full range of customers. Companies that figure this out will have talent their competitors miss.

Leading companies are already making these changes, though quietly. They’re building leadership programs that recognize different strengths and backgrounds. They’re creating advancement paths that don’t require sacrificing everything else. When you focus on performance rather than presence, on results rather than face time, you build more effective leadership teams. These companies aren’t changing to appease younger workers. They’re doing it because it works better.

What Executive Teams Must Do Now

For companies willing to adapt, this crisis becomes an opportunity to build more effective, diverse, and sustainable leadership models. For those that don’t, it threatens to leave them without the executive talent needed to compete. The solution requires five major changes: 

• Reimagine Manager Training: The data shows a clear expectation gap. Companies need to invest in developing managers as coaches and mentors, not just task supervisors. This addresses the root cause of leadership rejection—bad management experiences. 
• Create Purpose-Driven Advancement: Since 89% of Gen Z and 92% of Millennials consider purpose important to job satisfaction, leadership development programs must explicitly connect advancement opportunities to meaningful impact. 
• Address Financial Insecurity: Offer transparent compensation structures, financial planning resources, and clear ROI on career advancement. You can’t expect people to take leadership risks when they’re financially insecure. 
• Embrace Flexible Leadership Models: Create what Deloitte calls “lattice careers”—development paths that build leadership skills through diverse experiences rather than vertical climbs. Not every future leader needs to follow the traditional path. 
• Match Their Learning Preferences: Replace annual reviews with ongoing development conversations. Seventy percent of Gen Z work on career development weekly, so meet them where they are with continuous, skills-focused development that matches their self-directed learning style. 

Why Companies That Adapt Will Win

The companies that solve this leadership crisis first will have a massive competitive advantage. While their competitors struggle to fill executive roles or settle for leaders who don’t understand how to manage millennial and Gen Z workforces, early adapters will have built leadership teams that actually reflect how business works now. 

These future leaders will know how to guide organizations through technological disruption because they lived through it. They’ll understand stakeholder capitalism because they demanded it as employees. They’ll create sustainable business models because they won’t sacrifice long-term thinking for quarterly results. Most importantly, they’ll know how to attract and retain top talent because they represent what top talent actually wants from leadership. 

The executive teams that succeed in the coming decade won’t be managing a different generation; they’ll be demonstrating a different kind of leadership entirely. The companies that figure this out first will have access to a talent pool their competitors are actively alienating. 

Companies face a choice: evolve their leadership development to match these changing expectations, or risk facing a talent drought just when leadership matters most. This evolution starts with succession planning that actually reflects how careers work now. 

Traditional succession planning fails because it assumes linear progression and singular ambition. But when your best talent is building portfolio careers, taking lateral moves for learning, and prioritizing purpose over position, you need succession strategies that account for these realities. External perspective becomes essential here. At Stanton Chase, we help organizations map succession for all roles that matter to the business, because the capabilities that define tomorrow’s success might be sitting three levels down in your organization today. 

The companies getting this right recognize that succession planning now means identifying talent potential wherever it exists and creating multiple pathways to leadership roles. They understand their next CEO might come from an unexpected division, might have taken a career break, or might have built their credibility through lateral moves rather than vertical climbs. They use frameworks like Stanton Chase’s 3As (Ability, Aspiration, Agility) to assess readiness based on potential and adaptability, not just current performance in a hierarchical structure. 

This approach to succession planning directly addresses what millennials and Gen Z want: development opportunities that don’t require sacrificing their values, transparency about advancement possibilities, and recognition that leadership capability develops through diverse experiences. 

The future C-suite is being shaped today, one mentoring conversation and purpose-driven opportunity at a time. 

The question isn’t whether these generations will eventually embrace leadership roles, but whether organizations will evolve their definition of leadership fast enough to attract the talent that will define the next era of business success. The companies that answer yes may be the only ones left standing. 

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.