By Adrian Gostick, Contributor | Forbes
Recently, I interviewed a young professional who said something I never would have expected to hear early in my career: he would happily earn less money for the rest of his life if it meant never having to manage anyone. He said it calmly and without hesitation, as if it should be obvious.
Not “for now” or “until things settle down”; he never wanted that responsibility.
This wasn’t someone avoiding ambition. He had a master’s degree in a highly technical field and was as smart and articulate as anyone I’d ever spoken with. But the idea of being responsible for other people’s performance, problems, and growth was, in his words, “high-stress for low-reward.”
A decade ago, I might have dismissed that as a one-off. Today, I hear versions of it everywhere. And new data from a recent Robert Half survey backs it up, revealing a shift leaders should not ignore. Among the youngest members of the workforce, 40 percent of Gen Z professionals want a promotion only if it doesn’t involve becoming a manager (the highest share of any generation). And another study by Robert Walters suggests an even wider trend. In its research, more than half (57 percent) of Gen Z say they would rather pursue career advancement as individual contributors than take on traditional middle-management roles.
For as long back as most of us can remember, the corporate ladder was the default path: you worked hard, got promoted, and eventually managed other people. But many of the brightest young professionals have little interest in those roles. This trend ties directly into what some observers are calling “conscious unbossing,” a deliberate choice by many younger people to avoid traditional management roles in favor of working more autonomously.
Gen Z’s preferences aren’t about rejecting ambition. Most want growth, influence, and impact, but not necessarily in the form of managing other people. This presents a challenge: if organizations continue to equate leadership solely with who is currently in a management position, they run the risk of creating a widening gap between what the next generation has to offer and what they seek in their careers.
Understanding this shift matters for a few key reasons:
Leadership pipelines are thinning. If many of the best young professionals are avoiding people-management roles, succession planning is at risk. Middle managers are critical to organizational health: they coach teams, translate strategy into action, and are responsible for helping their people reach day-to-day goals.
Retention depends on meaningful growth, not just better titles. Gen Z is a largely pragmatic group: they want career progression, but most are not willing to add extra responsibility for a title and only slightly more money.
The very definition of leadership is changing. For instance, in more progressive organizations, traditional hierarchies are giving way to more fluid, collaborative models, with companies increasingly rotating individual contributors into temporary project leadership roles.
To turn all of this from a challenge into a competitive advantage, leaders need to rethink how they define leadership and professional success. What follows are three practical ways.
1. Expand What Counts as Leadership
Too many organizations equate leadership with people management. But influence doesn’t require a team. Leaders can emerge as:
- Technical specialists who shape strategy through expertise
- Project managers who drive outcomes across functions
- Mentors and coaches who cultivate capability without formal authority
Companies can be more successful when they validate the ambitions of employees who want growth without the perceived baggage of traditional management. Robert Half’s findings suggest this broader view aligns with more of what Gen Z values.
2. Redesign the Middle Management Experience
The story many young professionals are telling themselves is that management is stressful and overwhelming with little reward. Conscious unbossing is not laziness; it’s a rational response to what Gen Z has witnessed: burned-out managers experiencing high workload with low support.
Leaders can make management positions more compelling by:
- Providing training in coaching and conflict resolution well before individual contributors take on leadership roles, so they feel capable of the task
- Reducing personal expectations and administrative tasks when people first become managers, so they can focus on developing a team
- Ensuring all managers have decision-making autonomy and the resources they need to succeed
3. Invest in Wellness
To put it bluntly: Gen Z wants growth without sacrificing their well-being. Who doesn’t? Leaders who allow managers to protect their personal energy and that of their people will attract and retain the best talent long term. And in a world where hierarchical ambition is no longer the sole goal in career development, putting a priority on wellness and recovery is going to set some organizations apart.
As Gen Z’s influence grows, leadership will feel less like a ladder and more like a climbing wall. On a rock wall, there are many routes to choose from, and the only way to fail is to stop moving.
