The Biggest Mistake Leaders Make When Connecting with Gen Z
Posted on September 17, 2025 by Lonna Gordon, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Whether your clients are members of Gen Z or are struggling to with or managing Gen Z co-workers, not embracing authenticity is a critical error.
Gen Z is often characterized in negative stereotypes.
- Entitled, unwilling to pay their dues.
- Expecting to be rewarded without putting in the work.
- Short attention span and thus not sticking with what they start.
In actuality Gen Z members are:
- Pragmatic about work.
- Surging towards life milestones.
- Saving and investing in products, principles and people.
- Enjoying travel and connecting with the global world we live in.
- Serious about health but do not do fad diets.
At the core of each of these Gen Z truths is AUTHENTICITY.
Often leaders try to impress on the premise of experience and qualifications, their CV. The challenge is that your CV shows your successes, but it does not show your failures and the lessons learned from them. Your CV creates an air of “perfection” that Gen Z does not consider AUTHENTIC. So, when connecting with the member of Gen Z in your life consider sharing the path to your success not just what you have achieved. They will respect you more for the AUTHENTICITY of what you have shared.
