Executive Podcast #244: The Gen Z on My Team is Demanding a Promotion

This episode explores the topic of handling Gen Z employees who are pushing for promotions within months of being hired. The podcast discusses how offering new titles and authority can inspire employees to take on more responsibility and become accountable for project results. We present five key points leaders should consider when addressing an employee’s weak influence, including transparency, expectations, and growth potential. Celebrating milestones and recognizing progress supports teamwork and engagement. Every generation in the work force can offer a unique perspective and contributions that unite teams and support growth.

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Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. I am Perry Holly a maxwell leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. I want to bring to your attention just as we get started, there’s a lot of people that Perry and I, as we’re traveling around the world, really get to just talk about this podcast and talk about what we’ve created here at Maxwell Leadership and the content that Perry brings to us each week. I want you to know we often talk about going to Maxwellleadership.com/Podcast. There you can leave a topic which is always encouraged for Perry. We were in a meeting the other day and he was like, does anybody get any topics? Like, Chris is asking me to do four more.

Perry Holley:

This is 244. I’m driving. I’m not.

Chris Goede:

We love that. We love questions because really what comes out of this is really what we’re hearing in the field. And even today, you’re going to hear a little bit about something that Perry has been dealing with on a coaching call. And we got a course around it. We’ll talk about that in just a minute. But I want to encourage you when you go to that website. We have a family of podcasts. And so not only do you have this podcast, we have our Maxwell Leadership Podcast there that Mark Cole is on, and then we have Don Yaeger’s podcast as well, the corporate competitor. And I love that podcast. You and I, we talk about often about sports being so many leadership analogies. And Don has taken the premise of there are executives that are in corporate America right now that the played sports when they were young and it impacted the way that they were molded and shaped and probably helped become who they are today.

Perry Holley:

Don’s latest book, just out on banana ball. Yes, I’ve really enjoyed it. So check that out. All Don’s writing.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. So we just wanted to mention that you may already know that, but the family of podcasts are there. And again, that’s at Maxwellleadership.com/Podcast. Well, today’s topic, this is something that Perry has been immersed in for, well, I was going to say a couple of weeks, but then he probably would have told me that was a lie. It’s been a couple of months. One of our thought leaders, Tim Elmore, wrote a book called The New Kind of Diversity, and it’s really talking about the diversity in generations that are in our world today and in our workforce. And so Perry has been just developing this content. And we just did a beta a couple of weeks ago for a new corporate training course that Perry developed to walk right alongside Tim’s content. And we got rave reviews. And so we’re making some adjustments. We’re going to be rolling that out. And this is an issue that an opportunity, not an issue that we’re all dealing with in our organizations. And so today’s topic is really pulling out of that as well as a coaching call that Perry has talked about. And the title today is the Gen Z on my team that is demanding a promotion. Now, not all Gen Z’s are maybe demanding a promotion. Maybe multiple different generations are demanding promotions. So the principles you’ll be able to kind of relate to and cross over. But specifically, this comes from a call that you were on really talking about, hey, how do I help coach this Gen Z through asking for this promotion when they just showed up last week? No. Talk a little bit about that and why you’re bringing this really topic to us today.

Perry Holley:

Yeah. So on a coaching call, the executive mentioned they had a really talented person on their team. They were just very young, the youngest on the team, and had only been there nine months. But they were really pushing them, pushing the executive for promotion. I want a promotion. Promote me or else I’m out of here. Give me a promotion. But the executive I complimented them is that they said, I don’t want to lose this person. They are a talented team member, would love to develop them and grow them into this. But they seem to have this idea in their mind that they need to be a manager. Now ask why do they want to be promoted? Is it money? They want more money? No, they seem to want the title. They seem to want the position. And I said, well, let’s talk about how we can do that. Maybe I should just address that. The Gen Z, if you’re not familiar with the generations baby boomer, which would be me, gen X would be Chris, and we got the Y, the millennial, you know, and then the Z is the youngest member of your force, the youngest member on the team. Basically, the ranges always vary, but from year 2000 to now is when the Gen Z came in. The way they were affected was they were 911, September 11 babies. The watched their families, their parents, everything affected by that. They sometimes are called Homelanders because they came into being about the time that the Homeland Department of Homeland Security came into being. So they’ve had all about safety and terrorism, but they add a lot of values. What we talk about in this new kind of diversity class is stop stereotyping people and let’s find a value that each generation brings. Each generation does bring a value to the workplace. So the idea today I wanted to just address, what do you do if it’s not uncommon. By the way, talked to Tim Elmore about it. He said, no, it’s very common that they move fast. They’re very used to being promoted quickly. And we’ll probably talk about that, but just that they haven’t really had jobs. So this is their first time out and Tim says they’ve gone from the bookcase to The Briefcase and the are in the workforce, but they bring a lot of value.

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Chris Goede:

Yeah, you talked about from the book case to the Briefcase. This generation has come from basically schooled right into the workforce and have different expectations than you probably do as their leader or those that are influencing them. And then they probably also have speedier expectations on their promotion through the organization. And so we want to make sure that as leaders, we just equip you with some tools and some thoughts on how to help them through that process, help guide them. We love it, right? I always say all the time, I’d much rather have someone on my team where I got to kind of pull back a little bit than push forward. But we got to make sure that they’re prepared and that they’re doing it for the right reason and not necessarily just the title. According to a survey by Inside Out Development, more than 75% of Gen Z members believe they should be promoted in their first year on the job. So it sounds like it’s not just a coaching call and conversations that you’re hearing. There’s actually some research behind it.

Perry Holley:

It’s a big deal. So the idea that I was mentioning earlier, most of them have it’s not a big like you and I, we were forced to have jobs when we were in high school. I mean, I started working probably when I was twelve, throwing newspapers and then cutting grass and doing these things. So it was always working my way up through things. But most of the Gen Z today and this not to stereotype of, not everybody like you said, but it’s predominantly have not worked a lot of jobs outside of school. Their job has been school and they get promoted every year. They get from go from 9th grade to 10th grade to graduate to go to college. And the keep getting promoted kind of quickly. They’re used to this regular secession of promotions. So even in the video, they’re big in the video and the video you go from level to level to level. So the mindset is there is that it’s time, it’s time for me to move forward. And I just think I really want to address today, how do we keep the positive in this? And I compliment them, be aggressive, go for it. But they don’t really seem to know how the real world works. And that’s one thing we can help them with and that’s what we want to try to do.

Chris Goede:

I love what you just talked about in regards to videos, video games. Right. I hadn’t thought about this, but growing up, most of them are very involved in the video game industry. And it’s like, yeah, I completed level one. Now I get to go to level two. That’s just kind of a mindset that they have. And for most young people, a promotion is really about the title. It’s about being the boss. And they really haven’t learned yet what true leadership is. And as you guys know, here at Maxwell Leadership, we define leadership as influence. And it’s not necessarily about the title, where they do think it is about the title. And it’s not necessarily about being the boss, right? It’s about being the leader. And there’s a big difference. And so what we want to talk about is how do we not allow them to think that that’s the next step, that it’s all about the title? Because as we’ve talked about in the five levels of leadership, which is everything that we kind of build this content off of, that’s really just the lowest level of influence. And we don’t want them to stay there, but we need to make them aware of that as they begin to learn about influence and leadership and work their way up in the organization.

Perry Holley:

That’s one of the first things we did on this coaching call was I asked the leader, if you took I just called it an influence inventory of this person, how would you rate their influence with their team members and with you? And she said, well, they’ve got some, but no, it’s not strong. She’s really not viewed very positively because there’s always push, push, push thing. So I thought influence is the first place to start doing that. Let’s just go. I have a handful of things, maybe five, that things that you should be thinking about if you’re facing this kind of situation. And number one, by all means, talk about it. Talk about the subject. Do not avoid it. Do not tell them later. Do not push it away because you may push them away. And so I really want to be above board to talk about you mentioned earlier it’s really key is expectations are different, mine and theirs. So let’s get on the same page. What can you expect when working with me and for me on this team? How do things work here and even reassuring you, I see you have a bright future, but it’s not today. It’s going to develop day by day, not in a day. And so we think about putting it on the table and being transparent about how the organization works. What do you see in the future? Talking about plans three to five years down the road, what do you see? I asked that question once, and the young man said, I see me in your seat. I thought, God, took me like six years to get here, but maybe he was a star, so maybe he could. But anyway, talk about it. Don’t you know it?

Chris Goede:

Yeah. And what I love about that is you talked about the expectations. We talk about the difference between the expectations and what reality is for us, for our team members, for everybody. And that’s the disappointment gap. And what we don’t want to do is we don’t want them to be disappointed in the journey that they’re there, they’re talented. You brought them on the team for a reason. And so how do we do that? We do that by I love what you said by just having that communication. It also makes me think about a statement of when that decision happens and you don’t give them the promotion or you don’t give them the title when they were expecting it. If they’re surprised by that, that’s your fault.

Perry Holley:

That’s a really good point.

Chris Goede:

That’s your fault as a leader. And so just building off what you’re talking about, so many things in leadership, I think improve with better communication.

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Chris Goede:

Well, let’s talk about the second one that you have here. This is something that is so real because most of the times now, all the report and data that we’re reading and seeing in the top three, maybe the top two reasons that people are joining organizations is what is my career growth? What’s the what are you going to do to help develop me as a person professionally? What does that look like? And so number two is develop a step by step growth plan for that team member. Make sure that they understand that you want the to improve. You want them to become better. And when they see a clear path towards that progression in their career, number one, they’ll understand what reality is and they won’t be disappointed. But number two, they’ll stay engaged. And that’s what we’re looking for, is how do we all generations, all people, how do we keep them engaged? And so by developing a step by step growth plan for them. We believe you can do that.

Perry Holley:

Yeah. We did a podcast once called do I Have a Future here? And I think this is not just for your Gen Z employees. For every employee should have a plan do they have a future here? And showing them the step by step growth that is required to get there. We’ve also done a podcast on are you setting high expectations? We did it not too long ago. And I think again about people think it’s just so easy to go get the manager job. I’m obviously prepared. I’m obviously ready. Then I really haven’t done a good job of setting the bar. I haven’t done a good job of setting the expectation. But I also to your point, I really want to have how do you get there? I’m not going to leave you alone. It’s all about months and years. Then I’ll know you’re ready. No, it’s got nothing to do with time. It’s got to do with your development, your growth. And when you get that message going with people of any age, they know that the bar is not a tenure it’s a growth bar, not a tenure bar to do it.

Chris Goede:

I love that. It’s real quick, let me add on to that. John talks about it often about, hey, let’s make sure we’re growth minded, not goal minded. We want to have a goal. We want goals, and we want them to have goals. But we really want to be focused on growth. And by the way, to your point, if they are in that growth mindset, the goals will follow.

Perry Holley:

Another idea was got this from Tim Elmore as well about can you incentivize growth? Can you set goals or targets for their personal growth, for their development? Put them on projects, let the lead some things where they have some of the responsibility that goes with that. And then maybe there’s some incentive, some reward, some bonus that could be played. Doesn’t have to be cash. Could be some other things that are meaningful to them, but letting them I think the point here is do I feel like I’m making progress? And this came up with my individual coaching situation was if this individual saw that she was making regular progress, would that help? Yes. Because I feel like I’m just sitting here and times are burning. I’m 22 years old and I need no, you’re at a great place. You’re learning, you’re growing. I do see a future for you here. Here’s the steps. We’re going to go there and I’m going to give some targets and some reward along the way.

Chris Goede:

I’ve seen some organizations where they’ve actually made part of their quarterly or their annual reviews and the compensation package, there’s a percentage of it that is tied to the growth of that individual. And now you got to be very clear. You got to set the expectations so that it’s more objective than it is subjective. But there’s a way to go about doing that and incentivizing that growth. So I love that.

Perry Holley:

I think it’s important to remember that a lot of this Gen Y and Gen Z, everybody likes money, but they’re not really motivated by money and things. The way that maybe a baby boomer like me would be. The way I grew up, it was go for that next target, that next thing. I’m really driven by that. They’re not they’re driven by more purpose and by making progress. And so even though you’re incentivizing, the focus is not the money or the prize. The focus is you’re making progress, and I’m going to incentivize it to do that. So they’ll enjoy the bonus or the prize, but don’t get mistaken. That’s not the key.

Chris Goede:

That’s right. That’s good. Well, number four is new titles and authority. And so I think what you’re going at here and what we really mean by this is, if it’s possible, how do you provide new opportunities with a title in order for them to have a little bit of an authoritative role? That’s a strong word when it comes to leadership. But thinking about, like, can they be the lead on a project? Can they lead or be the director of a certain initiative right before them saying, hey, I’m the vice president of whatever, right the way we did? Yeah. How do you begin to do that? So that they can begin to see that they are receiving some titles, not artificial, but as long as they are earning, it growing. And then the other thing I love about this is even if it’s small projects, small initiatives that you’re giving them titles to lead, then it’s something you can hold them accountable to and you can point back to and be like, hey, I gave you the title to be able to lead this initiative or this team. And we missed a few things here. We need to really step back and grow, or you can be like, man, absolutely killed it. Like, now we’re looking for something else. And you just begin to kind of build that up for them so that there is a little bit of title and authority.

Perry Holley:

I love this one. And actually, during our full day workshop on the new kind of diversity workshop we did last week, two weeks ago, I put this on the table, said I had 25 people in the room. So I said, what have you done? What have you seen? And one of the ideas was like, you say, give new titles, new authority. So you’re a junior project lead, you’re the senior project lead, you’re the project lead. So one of the members of the class said that she had done this on her team. She was the owner of the business. She had a Gen Z pressing her hard. She gave them that title and then did what we would call the after action review, doing the checkpoints along the way. How did it go? What are you learning? How what are the results? How was your influence? Where did you fail? Where did you win? And really opening the eyes of a Gen Z, that with and this is the Tim Elmore quote, but he says with rights come responsibilities. And a lot of what their upbringing has been, they have a lot of rights. We might even call it some entitlements around these Gen Y, Gen Z’s, that they don’t know the responsibility that comes with that. Right? And so what you’re doing is saying, yes, I’ll give you the right to be the project lead. But with that comes responsibility for the project, for the people on the project, for the outcome of the project, for the results of the project, and you start matching these rights and responsibilities up. Then they start seeing, well, this isn’t what I thought it was. I thought I was just going to be the boss and be able to tell people what to do. No, we’re talking about influence and about producing results and through people, and this is a big deal, and they start to really wake up to that. So I think that’s a really good one to me is even if you are making up a title, do so. But given the responsibility that comes with it, don’t just tell them the last one thing about creating celebrating milestones is so important about celebrating work anniversaries or noting team members that have been on the job for a certain amount of time and giving shout outs to folks on their role and what they’re doing can be tied to results, can be tied to their length of time with the team. Just anything to note that, you know, that you’re recognizing what’s going on, you’re recognizing their progress and their movement inside the organization. And so I think sometimes we overlook seems a little simple, but we overlook it.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. I think any great team, any great leader understands that this is a characteristic of something that has to be involved in what you’re doing as a team. You have to celebrate some wins. You just think about it’s a grind. We all work hard, and if we’re not taking time to celebrate some of those milestones and some of those wins, we’ll just get discouraged, right? We won’t be as engaged as we want to be. So I love that you threw that in there as number five. Well, this last section you put in my notes here before we work towards wrapping this up, I think I forgot everything else that was in here because you said, hey, Tim, Elmore talks about Crock Pots, not microwaves. As soon as you said crock pot, I was like, oh, I’m in. What are we talking about here? And so this imagery actually comes from one of Tim’s habitudes, which that is. Tim’s genius is not only the next generation and studying them and bringing content to us, but then they’ve developed these images around habitudes that are just phenomenal. But most people see their career as something that isn’t a Crock Pot. It’s going to take time. It’s not something that you leave that night, you put it in a microwave, you come back, and then all of a sudden, man, within minutes, you have the opportunity and a title to lead. That’s not how it works. And we just need to make sure that everybody understands, everybody on our team, that everybody needs to slow down, and we need time to grow and to develop. And when you do that, you will be such an effective leader because of your experience and the time that you’ve put in that it’ll be more rewarding to you. I think about the statement of consistency compounds. You think about your journey, and you can think about good leaders. You served with bad leaders. You served with things that you didn’t do well, that you did well. And all of that plays into who you are today. And so it may be an image that you share with them, and they may not understand when you walk in and say, hey, I just need to be a Crock Pot versus the microwave, we’re going to get there. They may walk out of your office right there, and they never come back. So that happens. Perry is the one that said that not Tim, but I think that’s a great imagery that you threw in here for us to talk about.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, I love it. And then you think about any meal you’ve ever had. Would you rather if you come in the door at the end of the day and it’s coming out of the microwave or coming out of the Crock Pot, which one would you rather have? You know that it’s going to be good. If it came out of the Crock Pot, it’s had time to stew and develop and become more complex. It’s just a great outcome that way. But sometimes it’s funny we pointed them, but when I was this age, I recall specifically badgering my I was a salesman, and I was pretty good and pretty group of myself and kept badgering my manager that you got to promote me. You got to promote me. And they kind of did these five things. The didn’t avoid it. The called me in. They said, we’re going to develop you. We see promise for you. And it took three or four years, and I got that promotion, and I was on my way, so so don’t look down at somebody. This is a great sign that somebody wants to be in your organization. They want to move, but it might be Crock Pot, not microwave issue.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. And I love that you said that, because I think every younger generation that’s in the workforce aspires to do that. To your point, I can remember having those thoughts as well. And so this was just based off of a coaching call specific to Gen Z and then obviously coming fresh off of you developing that content. And let me stop right here, too. I just want to encourage you. If inside your organization, you have multiple different generations, which is probably all of.

Perry Holley:

Us, if you don’t call me particularly.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. If you don’t, then there’s another issue that we would love to kind of help you work through. But if you do, the content based off of Tim’s curriculum and then Perry’s expertise and put it together is phenomenal. And we would love to expose you to that. And so I want to encourage you to go to Maxwellleadership.compodcast there. If you just leave us a note that you’re interested, we’ll have one of our team follow up with you because it is phenomenal. So just wanted to encourage you with that. As we wrap up. Just as a reminder from today, this is what we talked about. The five things that Perry brought to us were hey. Number one, talk about the subject. Don’t avoid it. Number two, develop a step by step growth plan for those team members. That is so important. That is one of the reasons why people are choosing your organization to work there in the first place. So make sure you follow through with that. Number three, incentivize growth. Number four, create new titles and authority for them to begin to grow their influence and experience and then finally celebrate the milestones of which they achieve fantastic well.

Perry Holley:

Thank you, Chris. And as Chris mentioned, if you want to know more about what we do want to leave a note, give us a comment. We love hearing your comments. If you want to leave a question, we’re glad to answer that for you here in the podcast. You can also leave a note. If you’d like to know more about a new kind of diversity generational diversity training course, you can do all that at MaxwellLeadership.com/podcast. We love hearing from you. We’re very grateful you’d spend this time with us today. That’s all from the Maxwell Leadership executive podcast.