What are managers really saying about Gen Z when early-career professionals aren't in the room? In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on a conversation that's happening in leadership circles right now; and it's not what you think.
This isn't about the usual "kids these days" complaints. It's about leaders who genuinely care about developing their teams but are grappling with patterns they're seeing around professional risk-taking. Small risks like picking up the phone instead of sending an email, walking down the hall to start a conversation, or asking a question in a meeting seem magnified. These are things that used to feel routine but now seem to trigger hesitation.
If you're early in your career, you need to know this conversation is happening. And if you're a manager, you need to know you're not alone in what you're observing.
In this episode, we explore:
- The specific patterns managers are noticing around risk avoidance
- Why "What if I mess up?" has become such a loaded question for Gen Z
- How growing up with social media fundamentally changed the calculation around professional mistakes
- The difference between resilience as "toughening up" vs. resilience as specific capabilities
- Why some Gen Z employees already have this resilience built in (and who they are)
- What managers are really concerned about and why it comes from care, not judgment
This is Part 1 of a two-part series. In Part 2 we will get tactical with frameworks Gen Z can use to assess risk and strategies managers can implement to create safe spaces for practicing essential skills.
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Making what's invisible visible and what's assumed obvious and explicitly stated. Each week, we translate the untold rules of work into actionable insights for managers and early-career professionals.
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Website: theyvariable.com
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