Is Leadership Dead?
Alexis and Sally ask the question: Is Leadership Dead?
Leadership is undergoing a significant transformation, raising the question: Is leadership dead? While it’s certainly not extinct, recent studies suggest that leadership is facing a branding crisis. And this requires our urgent attention.
With a growing number of leaders contemplating their roles for better work-life balance, it’s essential to explore what these changes mean for the future of leadership.
In this episode, Sally Clarke and Alexis Zahner do just this: they dissect the evolving perception of leadership amidst generational shifts, societal pressures, and workplace transformations. Discover how future leadership can be rebranded to attract and sustain talent, with insights on wellbeing, autonomy, and meaningful work.
Key Takeaways include:
The leadership branding crisis: Why younger generations are reconsidering leadership roles
Data highlights: 40% of leaders contemplating leaving for work-life balance; Gen Z's unique leadership aspirations
Shift from linear career paths to lateral moves and skill diversification
Burnout risks: The impact of linear career expectations on wellbeing
Making leadership roles attractive: Compensation, meaning, wellbeing, and flexibility
The importance of designing sustainable leadership structures
Creating alternative career paths beyond traditional management
Decentralizing decision-making to empower teams and reduce leader burden
Reframing leadership as a growth opportunity aligned with millennial and Gen Z values
Role of organizational culture in supporting healthy leadership practices
Rethinking in-office expectations and remote leadership models
The potential of sharing leadership responsibilities within teams
Watch the episode RIGHT NOW on YouTube!
Chapters and Transcript:
00:00 - Is leadership experiencing a branding crisis?
02:04 - How career paths have transformed over generations
05:52 - Burnout and its effects on leadership aspirations
09:05 - What younger generations seek from leadership roles: Money, meaning, wellbeing
11:47 - Designing sustainable, supportive leadership environments
13:12 - The importance of training and mental health KPIs for leaders
16:14 - Rethinking the traditional leadership journey and roles
18:47 - The impact of remote work and system restructuring on leadership
21:47 - Empowering teams through decentralization and shared decision-making
24:00 - Navigating responsibility and autonomy in leadership roles
27:23 - Addressing stereotypes about younger generations and leadership motivations
30:38 - Rebranding leadership: Attracting talent with growth and balance opportunities
33:01 - Final thoughts: Is leadership dead? Or ripe for reinvention?
Sally Clarke (00:01.948)
Welcome to Live and Work More Human. And today we're exploring what might sound like a bit of a controversial topic. Is leadership dead? Obviously not completely in the morgue, signed off, forget about it, never coming back. But we definitely have some really interesting data to delve into that suggests that leadership is having a bit of a branding crisis.
So some of the data that we've seen, like 40 % of leaders have considered leaving their role to improve their work-life balance and wellbeing, according to a survey of almost 11,000 leaders by DDI. A comprehensive survey by RAND across 34 countries, 27,000 adults found that 39 % didn't want career progression and 57 % would reject a job if they thought it would have negative effects on their work-life balance.
And according to a separate survey, Gen Z is 1.7 times more likely than other generations to consider leaving leadership roles because they want to protect their wellbeing. Leadership is at a bit of a crisis, it seems. What's your take on this situation? What do you think is really at the crux of this issue?
I think what we're seeing here so is a re calibration of values across generations. I think what we're seeing is younger generations, millennials and Gen Z really have a good hard look at what is most important to them. I think in the past, we've seen things like status and symbols of success that come with status, like leadership positions and titles and related salary packages, really changing. And I think younger generations are re calibrating.
what it means to live a good life. And so I think this is part of where this is coming from. And I'd love to dive into this even more, but before we do, what's your hot take on this as just a sort of upfront topic? What do you think's driving it?
Sally Clarke (02:04.288)
I there's a few factors at play legs. think one of the things I've been thinking at particularly is just in the context of my own career, sort of, wasn't that long ago that stability and security and longevity of a career was actually quite normal where people would even stay in the same company, their entire careers, pretty much, and sort of move through the roles and, you know, sort of escalate through the hierarchy. And that's really blown apart these days. We're seeing a lot more.
gig work, we're seeing a lot more people moving through different, not just different organizations, but different careers themselves, different identities that they have. So I think we're seeing almost a, this is not sort of a linear shift. This is actually a bit of an explosion in terms of what it looks like, both from an individual perspective. So as we sort of navigate our own careers and move through things, things are very different to what they were 30, 40 years ago, because the parameters are different.
but then also for organizations, that kind of expectation that if you give someone an okay salary and it's sort of semi-manageable, that you can expect them to stay with you for years, if not decades. I think there's a fundamental shift in work and I don't think we have clear answers completely on exactly what that's gonna look like in five or 10 years from now.
Alexis Zahner (03:16.312)
I agree. And I just want to double click on something you said there, because I think it's an interesting point. And maybe we'll begin our journey of unpacking this here. And that is this idea that sort of the progression and the multifaceted nature of the career these days for millennials and Gen Z, I think is quite apparent. And I'll speak to the Deloitte Gen Z and Millennial report where they actually found one of the pieces of data that they found in that report was that for these two particular generations,
career progression was really important. So this looks like opportunities to develop your skillset as an individual, opportunities for training, opportunities to work on different projects with different teams, with different individuals. And I think what I'll speak to there is my own personal experience. And that is, think we're viewing career progression differently these days as well. I think in the past, this was quite a linear thing. You perhaps came into an organization at
a shop floor or a grassroots or a graduate level, you move through to middle management and then hopefully you move through to say a partner's role, a principal's role, a senior role in an organization. But what I think has been my experience as a millennial in the workforce is sort of lateral jumps to diversify my skill set. rather than moving up the career ladder, moving sideways, so working on different projects.
where my initial background as a new graduate was actually marketing. So shifting from the marketing domain, I then wanted to move into a more general management kind of domain. So for me, that looked like jumping from a marketing consultancy role into an arts and culture role, but actually having a team that I was responsible for managing. it was the same pay grade. It was the same level within an organization, middle management role.
except it allowed me to develop and expand my interpersonal skills, my communication skills, my leadership skills. And for me, that felt like a growth opportunity, more so than stepping up the linear path into a senior marketing manager's role, where it would be more of the same, but more pay. And I do think that that is, and we also see sort of through social media as well, this idea of so many younger people having side hustles or personal projects.
Alexis Zahner (05:37.762)
that they really want to invest their time and energy in and that being a really fulfilling, meaningful and purposeful endeavor to pursue as well outside the sort of typical career progression ladder. So I wonder what your thoughts are on that.
Sally Clarke (05:52.276)
For me, one of the pieces that immediately comes to mind at this point, surprise you, given my background and my research area, is the sort of the burnout piece. Because I think also a lot of these younger employees have seen either their own leaders or even their parents go through this career with all these expectations, this sort of linear path, but then have a crushing burnout at some point along that journey. And having seen that occur and seeing the ramifications of that, both from physical, emotional,
life perspective, like the impact of burnout on people, it's kind of a very stark awakening, I think, for these young people saying, I don't want that. That's not worth it to me. No matter to some extent, you know, what you offer me in terms of incentives, I don't want to be on that linear path. I want to diversify my life a little bit more. I want to be doing different things. And I also value creativity and curiosity perhaps more than just that certain outcome and that kind of playing the game by the rules that used to exist.
So I think there's a lot of people who are sort of seeing those examples around them and sort of having that sort of stark realization of, know, this one precious life that I have, that's not how I want to be living it.
Alexis Zahner (06:58.702)
100 % and you know it goes to your research in the anti-burnout space as well around identity complexity. When our entire identity is contingent on the one role or the one title that becomes a little fragile should anything happen in our career as well. So I do think it's a bit of an anti-burnout play whether we're conscious of it or not when we're making these decisions the less that our identity is contingent on one or two factors.
the more resilient we can actually be when things aren't going well in our career. And I do think that, again, I speak for myself. I don't want to speak for the entire millennial generation, but I am a president of a board writers club. I work in marketing at a writers festival. I also want to publish a book and I also want to consult organizations in a different space. And I think there is many parts of me that don't fit within a typical job description that I want to be able to explore.
Fortunately, as a result of that, also means that if my consulting is not going well, my role is not going well, or something somewhere else isn't going well, I'm not overindexed in that. And so I feel like my capacity to bounce back is better.
Sally Clarke (08:10.496)
I think it's an important point. What I just highlight there as well, as long as we're careful that differentiating ourselves in this way and sort of hustling and using our side hustles as a way of creating extra meaning, as long as that in itself is not leading to burnout where we're actually wearing ourselves out, but by spreading ourselves too thin, then I think it's a really important approach. think it's also one that we're seeing very predominantly from millennials and Gen Z in terms of just looking at different aspects of who we are, being able to,
Alexis Zahner (08:20.706)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (08:38.74)
do some DJing on a weekend, but also volunteering and all these kinds of different ways that we can create meaning in our lives and seeing that it doesn't and shouldn't just come from one office job as perhaps was the case, you know, decades ago. What do you think, I'm curious to hear, like, so what do you think, what are the organizations or where are the spaces where Gen Z are going to be leaning into leadership? Like, what does it have to look like for younger people to be interested in stepping into leadership roles?
Alexis Zahner (09:05.262)
It's a really interesting one. And I think I'll answer this from two separate perspectives. I think the first key piece here that as organizations, we need to be really conscious of is how we make leadership roles attractive first and foremost. And to speak to the Deloitte research around Gen Z and millennials specifically, again, they highlighted three key factors that sort of need to be present.
And the most important three factors that these generations have highlighted they want from work. The first one here is actually the money piece. And I think it comes as no surprise when we're living in a cost of living crisis, which we constantly and continuously keep hearing about, we need to be paying people as a fundamental, the right amount of money to step into these roles. So that that has to be there. I think to talk about the next two pieces here, we need to make sure that that's their first. Now, the second two are meaning.
and wellbeing. And I think the two of these sort of have a little bit of overlap as well, because I think, especially when we look at new research in the space of unimonic wellbeing, we know that meaning contributes to wellbeing and wellbeing contributes to meaning. So I think the two of these intersect quite a lot, but beginning with sort of the meaning piece, I think for younger generations, we want to feel like we're doing work that contributes to us on a personal level. It gives us meaning, it feels like it's related to the things that are important to us. But I think
There's this bigger piece of feeling that we're contributing to the world at large in a greater sense. So I think that's that's a really important piece. I think we're kind of we've moved through this age of work being a mundanity that we just show up to every day and get a paycheck from. want to feel like we're contributing in some way. And I think that that is really possible all the way down to your frontline employees. And I know some of the incredible people we've had on the podcast in the past, Zach Mercurio tells a lovely story about, you know, the janitors at NASA.
and understanding their role in putting people on the moon. So I don't think it necessarily means we have to be only working in passion projects like wildlife protection and all these sorts of things. We just need to feel that our day to day has a contribution to something bigger than ourselves. And then obviously that second piece there is wellbeing. And I think there's a systemic element of this that organizations need to be aware and need to put in place to make sure that employees working conditions positively contribute to their overall wellbeing.
Alexis Zahner (11:31.692)
And maybe this is where I'll throw to you, Sally, to maybe talk about some of the anti-burnout systems and things like that perhaps that organizations can be aware of to make sure that's the case.
Alexis Zahner (11:43.886)
You're muted.
Sally Clarke (11:47.582)
Well, all really great points, Lex. And I think I'd build on that by suggesting that we really need to be thinking about designing leadership roles so that they are sustainable rather than this kind of like martyricistic self-flagellation, taking on all the responsibility and all of the risk and really just not seeing the rewards. And those are the three aspects of rewards that you just elucidated that I think are the key ones. So making sure the salary is there, making sure the meaning is there and creating an environment, a culture of wellbeing.
Alexis Zahner (11:57.144)
Yes.
Sally Clarke (12:17.604)
One of the things I think we can also think about is not everyone wants to be a leader and that's completely legitimate. So creating some different career paths that have their own meanings sort of mapped out for people, because I think there will be some people who genuinely are finding their meaning in the DJing that they're doing on the weekend and not in their office job. That's totally cool. Let them have that sort of technical capability, the growth that they want, but without it necessarily being tracking towards, and now you're going to manage people.
Alexis Zahner (12:35.246)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (12:43.048)
I think making wellbeing a core leadership KPI is a really important one here. We really need to be prioritizing the wellbeing of leaders as a foundation. So we want metrics around that. We want to make sure that they are not being just burdened and then increasingly burdened and more burdened by all of these sort of responsibilities and obligations, but that their wellbeing is a core component of how they need to be showing up as well. that we're also tooling them to do so. I think we can also maybe think about
sort of generating some excitement for people by giving them some mentoring at an early age and sort of incorporating them into sort of this is what leadership means at this organization. Maybe some sort of preview experiences where they can sort of maybe, you know, join a team in perhaps a different role and sort of test drive leadership along the way can be a really interesting way of accessing it too. I think, you know, it is absolutely the design piece I think is really key for me in terms of burnout prevention because
It's really about ensuring that things are sustainable. So it needs to be a sort of that culture of support, of understanding, of transparency, of psychological safety. Not just that these new leaders are giving to their teams, but that they are experiencing for themselves from senior leadership, that they're being role modeled those practices from the outset as well, rather than just being burdened with role modeling them to their own teams. So there's quite a few pieces in there. And I think one,
sort of maybe easy lever that we can start to pull is simply training people in the capabilities that they need to be good leaders. Cause I think that is all too often, all too obvious yet overlooked.
Alexis Zahner (14:23.288)
You're very right. And I think it's an interesting, it's an interesting challenge because I think when we're looking at this from the generational perspective, one of the other things that the research highlighted was that autonomy was really important. And I think what happens with the transition from being an individual contributor as part of a team to being a leader is whether we, whether we like it or not, there is a loss of autonomy in a way, because we then have to be catering to the team. So
Our own personal time has to look a little different. Perhaps if we've been working remotely, we've been able to really dictate our own hours. But now suddenly we're stepping into a role where we've got to consider everyone else's calendars when they might or might not be able to meet business hours where we might suddenly need to be available to various stakeholders. So there is sometimes a loss of autonomy that I think if the trade-offs aren't easily seen by the individuals, that can be where we start.
seeing this reluctance to step into a leadership role. You know, if I'm making a really good paycheck as an individual and yet I'm able to finish it for every day or I'm able to do what I want to do in the morning or after work and do these other things in my life at the same time, but suddenly in a leadership role for the extra, maybe it's only 10 or $20,000 a year, I'm suddenly seeing that drastic reduction in my autonomy or
as an individual contributor, I'm not working on the projects I loved anymore, but instead now having to lead the people working on the projects they love, that can feel like a real trade off for people if we are enjoying the role we're in. So that's where I think, again, it's both an organizational consideration. How do we rebrand some of these leadership roles so that they are more attractive? And how do we provide the support to make people want to step into these roles and see the growth potential in them? But I also think there's an element of
people who are considering stepping into those leadership roles, really considering seriously if it is the right thing for them or not. Because as you mentioned, I do think in the last few years, we've sort of seen this burgeoning field of leadership being the positions that we should all be striving for. And I don't think that's the case either. I don't think leadership is for everyone. I don't think leadership is the right fit in different seasons of life.
Alexis Zahner (16:43.712)
And I think we should feel okay with not wanting to be in a leadership position as well if we feel like we love being an individual contributor. We love writing code all day and we don't want to have to step out of that and manage people writing code or we love working in the arts and working on these creative projects and we suddenly don't want to be responsible for the people side of it. I also don't think we should feel guilty about.
Sally Clarke (17:04.864)
completely agree. Like, so I think particularly like talking to some teachers and people in healthcare recently that often the shift into leadership roles, it's partly that managing people, but there's also a very heavy administrative burden that comes with it. And I totally get why that is a very unappealing sort of transition for some people that that responsibility is like, that's just not worth it to me. So I think there's a lot that organizations need to be doing about thinking about how can we improve that component of leadership.
so that people don't feel like they're losing time doing what they really love, that they are able to really focus on or have balance in what their lives look like. And it's interesting, I had a few conversations recently with friends who are in very senior roles and who've been offered a more senior role than a little bit of a salary bump. And each of these conversations, the through line has been, it's interesting, but I can see the amount of responsibilities I'm taking on, it's just not commensurate.
for me and it's not even just the salary that's not interesting, but it's the time and energy that I would have to invest in all the additional meetings that I'll have to be going to and all of the additional decisions that I'll have to be a part of. That's just not worth it to me. And I think there's perhaps, and this is, you know, perhaps it will differ from one organization to the next where, what levels we're sort of having to dial into here, where we need to be putting our focus. But I think that particularly, guess, because it just happened over a few weeks that I was having these.
series of conversations like, hmm, I think this is a bit of an issue that, that people and cultural leaders need to be thinking about in organizations. Cause there's going to be perhaps a bit of an empty space at the top. If people are sort of hitting a point where they're like, no, I'm, I'm leading and I'm leading enough for me at the moment.
Alexis Zahner (18:47.406)
And I think the other elephant in the room that we need to talk about is the expectation of leaders being potentially in office as well. This is something that I think I sent you a meme the other week via Instagram. And I don't like sort of generationally pigeonholing us this much, but it was like a millennial Gen Z math meme. And it was basically breaking down the salary of a leadership position in the city at $240,000 a year, but then all of the expenses.
that come underneath that. And when I say expenses, I don't just mean the cost of transport, the cost of parking, the cost of commuting, but also the time lost commuting to and from a city office. And what that might mean for people who do have hobbies or friendships and things like that outside of that versus potentially taking into a regional or a hybrid or a remote job at $100,000 less, but having no commuting time or cost.
and all of the sort of other things that come with having to be in office. You I know for me, I'm currently in a position where I'm working part of the week in the office. And on those days, it's impossible for me to get to the gym classes I used to go to in the afternoon at the right time because of traffic, because of commuting. So there is a trade off. And I think that is also something that as part of this systemic consideration around how we structure leadership roles, we also need to consider if the old norms of visibility
in a physical bricks and mortar workplace is still working for us or if there are new ways we need to consider how and where and why we expect leaders to show up for their team. Absolutely.
Sally Clarke (20:24.896)
Absolutely. I think one consideration that organizations might want to take is really taking quite a different approach to how we structure leadership. So rather than having sort of one person tasked with an enormous burden in terms of the leadership roles, can we perhaps disperse some of those roles and responsibilities through the team, bump salaries a little bit perhaps there, but just take a little bit of that sort of heaviness out of the leadership role itself, sort of decentralize the pressure.
Because I do think we're also seeing in the stats that burnout and even just chronic stress that leads to burnout, it's happening earlier to people. So I think there's a lot of people in there probably in their late 20s who have had a bit of a taste of feeling overworked and overwhelmed. And they're stepping back rather than leaning into that or just pushing through as people might have done in the past. It's like, no, that's not okay. So I'm just going to stay in my lane and keep doing what I'm doing.
and find meaning outside of this job. And there's a huge loss, I think, for organizations when they're seeing their people kind of actually pull back, disengage a bit, and just sort of coast.
Alexis Zahner (21:21.57)
Yeah. You had some interesting point you just made there, Sally, this idea of sort of, it was almost like you were alluding to like a job sharing thing with the leadership side of it. Do you think that we're seeing a push towards a decentralized decision maker in teams or a decentralized point of contact to sort of more senior middle management job sharing the decision making in certain roles? Like, is that what we're kind of seeing happening here?
Sally Clarke (21:47.732)
think potentially, I think there's two components to this. One is that leaders can create more autonomy and a sense of agency and engagement in their teams by bringing them into the decision-making process. And we've obviously done quite a lot of work with different organizations and teams around this. Empowering your people to be a part of that process creates a lot of buy-in to the decisions that are ultimately made. So that's something that even individual leaders can be doing right now to kind of, you know, to some extent take the pressure off themselves by bringing the team in.
But I think there's a bigger opportunity when organizations do that more structurally because it means that there's that culture is perhaps a little bit flatter. But it does actually create inherently more buy-in, more engagement through people feeling like they do matter, that their opinion and their role in that decision is important. But it also potentially unburdens leaders from that sort of sole point of I have to take responsibility for everything. Everything is on.
my shoulders, no one else gets it, and that isolation that that can lead to as well for leaders. So think there's a real opportunity in that sort of decentralization.
Alexis Zahner (22:51.714)
I agree, although I will just say, I think there is a point as well where people want to feel like their leader can step in and support with decision and where the empowerment line begins and ends and where, okay, I actually need your help and support and this decision is yours to make as well. Yeah, definitely. Because I think the other thing as well that I've been on the receiving end of is being in a middle management position where the managers
Sally Clarke (23:08.16)
And just pull the trigger, just pull the trigger, just tell us what to do.
Alexis Zahner (23:20.874)
in a position above me want to empower my position, but what it actually feels like is them negating their accountability and responsibility as a leader as well. And that being pushed back onto me. And then you find yourself in this position as a middle manager where it goes beyond empowerment to like, Hey, you guys aren't doing your job. You're saying it's about me feeling empowered to do my job. But what I'm feeling like is that you're just kind of
checking out and throwing that back on me. So I wanted to say, how do you think we might navigate that then as a leader? How do we sort of create that decision-making empowerment throughout the team without it feeling like we're negating our responsibility?
Sally Clarke (24:00.832)
I think it's a really important one, like sort of brought to mind that sort of the difference between being nice and being kind. And I think if we're constantly being nice and like, well, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? It's like, no, just stop asking me what I think, tell me what to do. And I think there's that kind of fine line. To me, this is almost a question that's not answerable by sort of these are the three ways to do this, but it's about doing the work on self-leadership, doing the work on...
being able to lead others, having healthy communication styles and really tasking yourself, sorry, tooling yourself with what you need to be able to navigate that sort of uncomfortable space between being a leader and telling people what to do, even if it's an uncomfortable decision, it's not unanimously supported, but at the same time, seeking input from others. Because I think it's those skills that will help us to run meetings that drive that sense of engagement of input from other people and ultimately coming towards a decision again.
not always about unanimity, sorry, you having a full, having everyone on board, but having people be a part of the process. I think that's kind of the key there. So I think it's, there's a lot that we can be doing. And I think for me personally, the self leadership component really comes down to being very self-aware. So I can tell viscerally myself when I'm starting to get into the, you know, sort of stepping out of my role or feeling a bit uncomfortable about telling people to do something I might, they might not agree with.
So I keep asking them. But so being sort of that sort of visceral sense of when I'm stepping into that as opposed to when I'm genuinely empowering others around me. Does that make sense?
Alexis Zahner (25:35.51)
Yeah, it really does. I love that. Now, I think there will be a few people listening to that to this conversation more generally, sort of looking at younger generations now. There's a lot of branding in the media that we're lazy, that we don't want to step into leadership roles because it's too hard and we don't want to feel stretched. What are your opinions on this sort of rhetoric floating around about how younger generations are doing work in 2026?
Sally Clarke (26:03.104)
I'm glad you asked Lex because I have a very vehement opinion about this and that is that this is just smart people looking at the example that's being given to them. And obviously having been through a catastrophic burnout myself and doing a lot of work in this space, seeing how much people are probably my generation, and this is generalization, but the older generations gave so much and got so little back.
And particularly, I can imagine for younger people who had parents, two parents who were working more than full time, giving so much of themselves to their work and being left either burnt out or unfulfilled. That is a very clear message. think in a very understandable taking from that is to go, I don't want that for myself. I don't think younger generations don't want to work or are lazy. I think they want to work smarter. I think they want to find work that is important to them and gives them a sense of meaning.
but doesn't become all consuming so that they're not able to show up in the other aspects of their lives. I think it's intelligence. I think it's growth. I think it's fantastic. And I think organizations need to stop, particularly the older generation, you know, people of my age going, well, they're just not, you know, just don't want to show up or want to work, seeing that this is intelligence and being able to lean into that and meet those people where they are. And then you'll be able to get so much out of this younger generation in a different way to what that looked like perhaps 20 or 30 years ago.
What's your take?
Alexis Zahner (27:23.01)
It's an interesting one because as a millennial who's been branded a snowflake myself, it's a really interesting point. And I think, you know, I think there's merit to both sides of the conversation. I do think we are a generation who wants our cake and wants to eat it too. And I think that that's okay. I do think that we are the first sort of generation to start standing up to the capitalism model that has been apparent for a really long time.
And I will speak really personally here, but this is my own anecdotal experience. As I grew up, you know, with a father who worked extraordinarily hard, shift work, who worked away for months at a time when we were children. And he would take a few weeks off every year at Christmas. And that was really the only time we get to spend with dad. Dad would be at work before I woke up as a kid. And he would be home after I'd gone to bed as a kid.
Sometimes on a Friday night, we were allowed to stay up late and wait for dad and he'd bring home ice cream. And it wasn't until the weekends that we got a bit of time with dad at our sport. So I grew up watching my father work extremely hard, only to then pass away at 56 years old and not get to reap the rewards of his hard work, which we then as a family, you know, really miss him. And I, as a child of that role model, wish that he had prioritized
spending more time with us as a kid. And that's easy to say because I wasn't in his shoes trying to provide for a family. So I think for many of us, we've been role modeled a generation who have prioritized work above all else. And I love that about my father because it provided me the opportunities I've had as a child and now as a young adult. And now in my mid thirties, there's work ethic values that I've inherited as a result of that. And.
I still want to be here to spend time with my children when I have them to be able to contribute to my community outside of my workplace as well. So I think what we're seeing is a pushback and a bit of an anti-capitalism shift here, which I am totally here for. And I do still think that we do need to consider what roles are worth stretching ourselves for and the trade off.
Alexis Zahner (29:42.132)
of what this might look like in other levels as well. it's a really, really interesting conversation. And I do think so much of our own individual personal experience comes into how we perceive the scenario. I happen to be someone who works really hard and is probably on, you know, to your point earlier, Sally, over-indexed in all the things I do and all the ways I'm trying to make money to pay my mortgage and further my career.
But I do still think that we can learn a lot from Millennials and Gen Z about how we are pushing back, about work being the entirety, some of our existence and importance.
Sally Clarke (30:21.92)
amazing looks and thank you so much for sharing so candidly your own sort of personal experience of what you saw and the pros and cons of that, what you learned from it, but also what you learned in terms of what you want to do and what feels aligned for you, but also the things about it that you don't want your life to end up being in terms of sort of fully consumed and sort of the sacrifice that we make to work. Now, if you could give leaders one message, like what do you think, as someone who's in an organization, what can we be doing to
Alexis Zahner (30:30.211)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (30:38.979)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (30:51.966)
change the branding of leadership so that more younger people are like, yep, I'm on board, let's go.
Alexis Zahner (31:00.394)
I think if we want to attract more people into leadership positions, we need to start really clearly demonstrating the ways leadership help us grow and develop and contribute to our careers as an individual. We know that Millennial and Gen Z prioritize growth, they prioritize learning, they prioritize autonomy. So we need to look at the ways in which these can be embedded into leadership while maintaining those fundamentals of money.
of wellbeing and of meaning. So I really think we need to look seriously at this data and start looking at the JDs of our leadership positions and saying what's missing and how do we use this information to rebrand these positions so that they are attractive to these brilliant and talented people who could be but aren't fulfilling these roles. What are your thoughts, Sal? What do we need to do to rebrand this?
Sally Clarke (31:51.412)
I think where we can start quite immediately is ensuring that the leaders who are currently in the roles of leadership are being given things like flexibility, autonomy and space to lead the lives that they want to be. Because I think when people see that occurring in their organization, they can see that their leader is able to go and pick up the kids when they need to, or is clocking off at five and is unavailable over the weekend. Those kind of things give strong signals.
that if I step into that role, I can also have a life where there is balance and I can have these other aspects of my identity to be very prominent in my day-to-day experience. So I think there's partly, think kind of both and, you creating those JDs that are really incentivizing people to know that they can continue to learn, to grow, to be curious, but also role modeling right now that leadership can be a healthy and fulfilling experience for the leaders who are in those roles as we speak.
Alexis Zahner (32:44.898)
I love that, Sally. It's a twofold thing. We need to see it to believe it, but it also needs to be shown to us in the JDs on paper. So we feel that that is going to be our expectations met when we move into those roles as well. So, Sal, final thought here, is leadership dead or not?
Sally Clarke (33:01.748)
Look, I think leadership is, you know, it's maybe had a couple of visits to the doctor. It's, there's some issues we've surfaced some issues. I don't think it's dead. I think it's actually potentially a really exciting thing for us to be able to rebrand, but it does need a rebrand. What are your thoughts Lex?
Alexis Zahner (33:18.914)
think it's alive and well. We just need to work on that rebrand and positioning to make sure that people can see that leadership is an incredible opportunity for growth and having your own personal needs met at the same time.
Sally Clarke (33:32.02)
Love it. Couldn't have said it better. Thanks so much for sitting down together again. It's been so much fun to chat.
Alexis Zahner (33:37.1)
Love it, Sal, and thanks for being with us on the Live and Work More Human podcast. We'll see you next time.
