For many of us, career progression has traditionally been quite easy to visualise. You start as a junior employee, gain experience, get promoted and eventually take responsibility for bigger projects and teams.
As a millennial who entered the workforce about 15 years ago, I remember looking at older workers who were perhaps 15 to 20 years ahead and thinking that, one day, I wanted to be where some of them were.
Some aspirations were superficial. We noticed the homes they lived in, the cars they drove and the lifestyles that their careers seemed to afford them. But we also aspired to professional milestones. We saw senior colleagues leading important projects, managing large teams and making key decisions that shaped the organisation.
Of course, we did not want everything that came with their careers. Long hours, weekend work and waiting years for the next promotion were not things that got us excited. Many of us also wanted better work-life balance and faster career progression.
It is therefore easy for millennials now in their late 30s and 40s to assume younger colleagues will want to follow a similar path. For example, we might try to inspire them with our own careers, thinking they want to follow in our footsteps.
But what if they do not?
Gen Z Still Wants Career Progression, But Becoming The Boss May Not Be The Priority
While financial security and progression still matter, climbing the corporate hierarchy and managing larger teams may not hold the same appeal.
Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, which surveyed more than 22,500 respondents globally, including 302 in Singapore, found that while 81% of Gen Zs in Singapore are interested in pursuing leadership roles at some point in their careers, only 6% say reaching a leadership position is their primary career goal. Instead, financial independence ranks higher, with 26% of Gen Z respondents citing it as their top career priority.
A similar gap appears in how quickly they want to progress. While 46% of Gen Zs in Singapore prefer steady career progression, only 25% want fast-paced growth. This suggests that while ambition has not disappeared entirely, younger workers may be less inclined to define ambition simply by how quickly they climb the corporate ladder.
A separate 2024 study by Robert Walters found a similar trend among Gen Z workers, sometimes described as “conscious unbossing”, where younger employees deliberately choose not to pursue traditional middle-management roles.
Simply put, for many Gen Z workers, becoming the boss is not necessarily the ultimate marker of career success.
If Nobody Wants To Be The Boss, Who Develops The Next Generation?
Gen Z workers may be less attracted to traditional management, particularly if becoming a manager means spending more time on administrative work and managing people’s problems rather than doing the work they enjoy.
But younger workers also need good managers.
In our early careers, many of us benefit from someone willing to guide us, provide feedback, and give us opportunities to learn and make mistakes. While technical skills can be picked up from a course, video or AI tool, it is harder to learn how to manage a difficult client or navigate workplace disagreements without guidance from someone who has done it before.
This creates a potential future challenge. If younger workers want mentorship and development, but fewer eventually want responsibility for developing others, who takes on that role when they become the senior employees?
Perhaps management itself needs to change. Companies can create stronger career tracks for individual contributors, allowing employees to progress without always becoming people managers. At the same time, those who choose management should be recognised for an important part of their job: developing the people who come after them.
Every generation has its own career expectations and challenges. Gen Z does not necessarily need to aspire to become the boss. But as they become the experienced workers the next generation looks to, some will eventually have to become the mentors and managers they once needed.
Photo Credit: iStock/TkKurikawa
