Understanding Gen Z: What leaders hear from a 21-year-old

I'm 21 and work as a Management Associate at a large insurer. In most of the teams I work in, the others are over 50. So when the conversation turns to "Gen Z", everyone often looks at me. As if I could speak for an entire generation.

I can't. But I can tell you what I experience and set it next to what studies actually show. Together, the two are usually less spectacular than the headlines – and much more useful for leaders.

Gen Z wants to lead – just not at any price

A common picture: young people no longer want responsibility, as long as their work-life balance is right. The Deloitte Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2026 paints a different picture. Of the more than 14,000 Gen Z respondents in 44 countries, 76% want to take on a leadership role later on. At the same time, only 6% of the Gen Z and millennials surveyed name leadership as their most important career goal.

To me, that fits together. For many people my age, leadership is not an end in itself, nor a title you collect. It is something you take on when the task makes sense. I experienced this on the board of the Central Swiss athletics federation: nobody asked me. I approached the board myself, because after my sports career I wanted to give something back to the sport. The responsibility came with the task, not the other way round.

For leaders, this means: if you want to win young employees over to leadership, talk less about levels of hierarchy and more about impact. What changes when this person takes on the responsibility?

Steady development rather than rapid promotion

A second figure from the same study does not fit the cliché of impatient young people at all: 44% of the Gen Z respondents want steady development, only 25% rapid promotion.

That matches what I know from sport. In athletics, I ended up training six to seven times a week. Progress rarely came in big leaps, but in small steps. You learn to see these small steps and take them seriously.

At work, it is no different. The question is rarely: when will I be promoted? It is: am I learning something here? Can I tell that I'm getting better? A leader who makes this visible doesn't have to promise rapid career steps.

Feedback: more often, shorter, more honest

My coach once told me she liked it, and that it helped, that I always ask for feedback and try to act on it. What's behind it: before I ask anyone, I first give myself feedback. What went well? What didn't? Only then comes the outside view.

I take this habit with me into the office. And I notice that it is not a given there. In many companies, feedback comes once a year, in the appraisal meeting, carefully worded. For someone who comes from sport, that is very little.

The St. Gallen Youth Study 2025 by the University of St. Gallen (HSG) shows that only 38% of Gen Z feel they are in good hands with their managers. The reasons are certainly varied. One of them, in my view, is simply too little contact. If you rarely find out where you stand, you quickly feel left on your own – even if your manager means well.

What helps day to day:

• short feedback straight after a presentation or a project step, not months later
• ask first: "How did you experience it yourself?" – that opens up the conversation
• keep it concrete: one thing that went well and one thing for next time

Give responsibility early and support the start

The start is the most delicate phase. A figure from vocational training shows this: according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (2023), 62% of first apprenticeship contract terminations already happen in the first year of the apprenticeship. The start decides a lot.

I know from my own experience how unfamiliar a beginning can be. When I switched from artistic gymnastics to athletics after nine years, I was told at my first training session that I ran like a ballerina – with pointed toes, the way gymnasts do. General training was unfamiliar to me too. I relearned step by step. After my first two medals at Swiss Championships, the European U18 Championships became the next big goal. In 2022, two years after the switch, I was on the start line there in the 400 m.

At work, it's similar for me. Today I present to the executive board, as the youngest in the room. That doesn't work because I already know everything. It works because I was trusted with the task and was able to learn what matters along the way: communication and stakeholder management often make more of a difference than the best slide.

What I pass on to leaders

In senior leadership courses, I was able to contribute the topic "dealing with Gen Z" and share my view. What I want to pass on to leaders comes down to a few points:

• Ask the person, not the generation. I speak for myself, not for all 21-year-olds.
• Make development visible instead of promising promotion.
• Give responsibility early and support the first few weeks closely.
• Ask for feedback as well, instead of only giving it. Young employees notice things that get lost in day-to-day work.

Gen Z is less of a puzzle than some headlines suggest. Often it doesn't take a new programme, but an honest conversation.

That is exactly what I talk about in my keynote "The youngest in the room": from the perspective of someone who, at 21, works in teams where most others are over 50. If generations are on the agenda at your leadership conference or HR event, I'm happy to tell you how I tailor the talk to your audience.