Generation Z Aspires to Become Executives but Does Not Want to Be Team Leaders [Kim Moon-kyung's Leadership Tech] (28)

[Financial News] At exactly 6 p.m., an employee in their second year at the company closes their laptop and gets up.
"I'll head out first."
The greeting is perfectly polite, but the team leader is uneasy. A report due in three days is still half empty.

When meeting leaders in corporate settings, one hears variations of the same complaint without fail. Young employees today will not act unless they understand the reason, while they frequently ask for feedback but react sensitively to criticism. Leaders from older generations tend to reach a quick and firm conclusion: They lack a sense of responsibility, have no perseverance, and are simply impossible to manage.
This is not a problem unique to South Korea. In a 2024 survey of 1,000 managers by Intelligent.com, a U.S. education information company, 75% said that managing Generation Z requires more time and resources than managing other generations. Among managers who said they had changed their management approach, nearly four in 10 admitted that they ultimately responded with micromanagement. In other words, control remains the first card leaders play when faced with people they find difficult to understand. Even if it is uncomfortable, we need to examine this point. Is the problem really with Generation Z employees, or with the standards their leaders use to judge them?
Psychology has a concept known as the "fundamental attribution error." Named in 1977 by Lee Ross, a psychologist at Stanford University, the term refers to the tendency to attribute other people's behavior to their personality or attitude rather than to the circumstances they are in. It is like complaining that the world looks blurry while wearing glasses with the wrong prescription. Through those glasses, an employee who is reluctant to work late becomes irresponsible, while an employee who asks why they have to do something becomes defiant. The moment they talk about stress and mental health, they are labeled as part of a weak generation.
But when we change the glasses, the same behavior looks entirely different. Leaving work on time may reflect focused engagement and a determination to produce strong results within the allotted hours. Asking "why" can be understood as an intellectual desire to understand the purpose of the work and contribute meaningfully. Taking care of one's mental health is also closer to a smart form of self-management—recognizing one's condition and taking control before burnout sets in.
This is not merely a more generous interpretation of the younger generation. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), which conducted a comprehensive review of generational research, concluded in a 2020 report that defining employees' needs and behavior through generational labels lacks scientific support and does not help with workforce management. Differences in behavior among employees are far more likely to stem from their current career stage, work experience, and changes in social and labor conditions than from the year they were born. The behavior displayed by people in their 20s today is more accurately understood as the result of overlapping factors: their position at the beginning of their careers, the experience of disconnection left by the pandemic, and an extremely uncertain labor market.
Even so, we too readily shut down our thinking with the magical phrase, "That's just how young people are these days." The danger of this phrase is that it gives leaders a free pass to stop thinking and asking questions.
This misreading is most dramatically revealed in the way people view leadership positions.
In Deloitte's 2026 global survey, only 6% of Generation Z and millennials said that holding a leadership position was their most important career goal. Looking only at this figure, it is easy to conclude that young people lack both the desire for promotion and ambition. Interestingly, however, 76% of Generation Z respondents in the same survey said they wanted to become executive-level leaders someday. When asked why they did not view leadership as an immediate goal, half of Generation Z cited stress and burnout, while another half pointed to excessive responsibility.
They do not dislike becoming leaders; they simply do not want to live as the kind of leaders created by older generations. Watching team leaders get squeezed from above and below, shoulder unlimited responsibility while having almost no authority, leave work at 10 p.m., and remain unable to put down their messengers even on weekends, young people are asking whether reaching that position truly constitutes success. If this reasonable doubt is interpreted merely as a lack of ambition, organizations will miss a critical warning from their future leadership pipeline.
That does not mean we should automatically excuse immature behavior by Generation Z. Breaking promises, ignoring the basics of business communication, and rejecting feedback essential to growth are failing grades for any professional, regardless of generation. Understanding does not mean allowing misconduct to go unchecked. Rather than compromising and lowering standards, outstanding leaders persist in explaining why those standards are necessary until the other person understands and nods in agreement. They make clear why the rules must be followed, how one's actions affect customers and colleagues, where autonomy ends, and where responsibility begins. What is needed after controlling leadership that blindly demands obedience has receded is precisely this kind of leader—one who provides sufficient context but clearly holds people accountable for the results they have promised.

So what can we change starting this week? When assigning work, try stating in even a single sentence why it is necessary before giving instructions about what needs to be done. Before clicking your tongue at an employee who leaves on time, ask yourself whether you have given that person clear performance standards defined by deliverables rather than working hours. Then have a cup of coffee with the youngest member of your team and ask, "How does my position look to you?" The more uncomfortable the answer, the closer it may be to the truth the organization most needs to hear.
Whenever a new generation has emerged, we have repeated complaints that it is ill-mannered or only looks for convenience. Ironically, the generation that heard those complaints now occupies leadership positions in organizations. Pushing future leaders who worked hard to get into the organization out of it may not be caused by generational differences themselves. Our long-standing habit of interpreting differences as flaws is the more dangerous threat.
Looking at you from behind, would the youngest employee on your team want to become a leader?

/Kim Moon-kyung, adjunct professor at Kookmin University and vice president of the Korean Leadership Association 



[email protected] Jung Myung-jin, medical correspondent Reporter