• Gen Z now make up an increasing percentage of the global workforce
• They spent their formative years affected by the pandemic and mass social movements
• What skills do they need in the modern world, in order to get by effectively?

Gen Z, the newest generation to enter the workforce en masse, have new attitudes and ways of seeing and being to bring to the world. They are, in a literal and temporal sense, the future. As the first generation to grow up in a fully digitized environment, they have experienced the world as totally networked at all times and in all spaces (phones always travel with us), so the world they come into and bring with them is a fundamentally new and changed and changing one.

Most of Gen Z will end up in the world of business, and almost all in the world of work. What skills do they need to be able to thrive as businesspeople and entrepreneurs in the changed world that they are coming into and will themselves change?

Already, Gen Z have “garnered a reputation for mistrust of the status quo, disconnection and impatience, and for demanding immediate action around issues it cares about”, according to Jenny Fernandez, Kathryn Landis, and Julie Lee in the Harvard Business Review. As a generation that has developed alongside life–force–sapping social media, they are a famously anxious generation.

The kids are alright

Isabelle Chevalier, Director of NEOMA’s Talent & Career Department, says that in her interactions with students ‘What comes up again and again is the fear of being bored!’ The enemy of boredom is passion. By harnessing their passions, Gen Z can swerve their biggest worry. Their impassioned and change-making attitude in the face of existential concerns will help Gen Z ideate, inspire, and improve.

Gen Z are keen to learn. A study from the London School of Economics shows that this innovative generation want to “gain the practical skills that will be necessary to navigate their future careers.” But what skills will Gen Z leaders need to harness to be able to make change happen in the world?

Radical Creativity

In our shifting world, the ability to ideate, transform, and create in entirely new ways is key. By pioneering brand-new concepts, Gen Z will be able to think up and apply serious fixes to key issues. This is especially essential for future leaders, argues Nana Salin, Director of Alternative Funding at Aalto University Executive Education and Professional Development.

“Radical creativity is about charting a path to futures unbound by tradition. For enterprises, the aim is to unlock new potential despite the field they work in. What’s best is that anyone can adopt this skill,” she says.

An aid to this will be generative AI, a technology Gen Z is adapting to fast. Ville Eloranta, a senior lecturer at Aalto, thinks that “generative AI is not about replacing human creativity but enhancing it. We need to think of generative AI as a creative partner that can whip up new concepts by sifting through tons of data to spot trends humans might miss.”

By learning and applying radical creativity, and utilising tools such as generative AI, Gen Z will be poised to affect the world in ever more positive ways.

Thinking critically

New entrepreneurs commonly ignore sage financial warnings in order to pursue their dreams. Although a dose of optimism is healthy, a realistic attitude and the ability to think critically about their own actions will aid Gen Z.

Researchers at emlyon business school and ESC Clermont Business School found that for many entrepreneurs, poor financial reports caused anxiety, but that they often ignored warning signs to continue to pursue their projects with little chance of success. The entrepreneurs studied combated poor performance by making unrealistic sales forecasts and enduring financial hardship, believing that they were demonstrating an “entrepreneurial spirit”.

Professor François-Regis Puyou, of emlyon, emphasized that accounting figures are critical and should not be overshadowed by hope or anecdotes of successful turnaround stories, and they suggested that entrepreneurs be more objective and hire diverse teams to provide balanced perspectives to avoid pursuing doomed ventures.

Usefully, learning innovative thinking is becoming embedded in education. Bradford School of Management’s MBA in Innovation, Enterprise and Circular Economy, the world’s first and only MBA focused on the Circular Economy, teaches prospective students how to use resources and energy more effectively, and reuse products and materials. It is built on the belief that technology and environmental literacy will be essential for future business leaders to thrive. For the hyper-tech-savvy, Bradford offers an MSc in Applied Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics.

Avoiding burnout and boredom

Finding ways to avoid burnout and boredom at work will aid Gen Z in maintaining consistency, at a time when many full-time workers find their work boring, frustrating, or stressful.

Research shows that the blending of work and personal life has exacerbated stress, with Google searches for “signs of burnout” spiking by 24% in early 2021. Burnout not only strains workers’ mental health, but also costs the U.S. economy over $500 billion annually and results in 550 million lost workdays each year.

Professor Lotta Harju of emlyon business school studied more than 2,700 workers in Finland and the UK over 18 months, and found that around 50% experienced boredom or exhaustion. These feelings often worsened over time due to overbearing job demands.

To combat burnout and boredom, Gen Z should advocate for the reduction of unnecessary corporate processes and red tape that hinders productivity. Bosses and managers must also monitor for signs of burnout and boredom, ensuring workloads are achievable and tasks are engaging, to improve overall well-being in the workplace.

Digital and Tech Savviness

In an overwhelmingly digital world, Gen Z needs to master digital tools, social media marketing, and emerging technologies like AI and blockchain to lead the future with innovation and agility. These skills can unlock innovation and even create new industries.

Data analysis, programming, applied statistics, and artificial intelligence (AI) are so important in our technological world that NHH Norwegian School of Economics has launched a brand new bachelor’s degree in Business, Economics and Data Science. The course will provide economics students with the opportunity to specialise in technology, reflecting ongoing innovations in the world of business. “The special skills appropriated in this programme are in high demand in business life today, and our purpose is to give students a solid platform of competence to solve the challenges of today and in the future,” says Øystein Thøgersen, the Rector at NHH.

Ability to navigate a multigenerational environment

Learning how to successfully navigate age-diverse workplaces is more important than ever. “This is the first time in history we’ve seen this number of generations working together,” says Lily Bi, president of accreditation body AACSB International, in the Financial Times, “but schools are also seeing more students from different generations in the same classrooms. This can only help students prepare and develop the interpersonal skills to navigate a multigenerational professional environment.”

To this end, courses are springing up that address multi-generational differences, and aid business discourse across the generations. Staff at BI Norwegian Business School noticed this, and Øyvind Kvalnes, a Professor in the Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour, now teaches an executive education course in intergenerational speech and leadership.

Strong communication

In an increasingly networked and communicative world, Gen Z will need to develop strong leadership, team-building skills, and effective communication and networking abilities. Growing up highly connected, Gen Z are at home interacting in fast-paced, digital environments where communications are brief and informal. Their in-person and longform communication skills, though, have been found lacking, with 70% of business leaders highlighting poor communication skills in the generation.

To reflect this, INSEAD’s executive education offers courses in Leadership Communication with Impact which teaches effective communication in the context of a professional environment. Its flagship Lead the Future executive education was launched in March of 2023. The course teaches ‘macro leadership,’ or how to influence people that you don’t necessarily directly work with to achieve change, says Charles Galunic, Professor of Organisational Behaviour Responsibility at INSEAD, in Poets & Quants.

‘If you’re in charge of hundreds and thousands of people, you cannot talk to each one of them,” Galunic continues. ‘But you have to impact their lives and how they work. Knowing how to orchestrate that is a process where you shape the context that shapes the behavior, and in the end, the outcome you want as a leader.’

World-shaping

Gen Z are soon going to take the world by force, and in many cases, already are. The better they hone their skills, the faster they are going to shape that world into the one they want it to be.

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