Millennials officially overtaken the Generation X as the largest cohort of managers in the American workforce in 2025. This handover of generations is more than a demographic curiosity – it may be an important change in the management of organizations, since millennials have a different management style than its predecessors.
After six months Worklife Trends Report At the end of June 2025, Glassdoor became the largest proportion of Managers Workforce and outdated gen Xers, who has dominated the lead in the past two decades. In current aging trends, Z according to the forecasts from the chief economist by Glassdoor Daniel Zhao will offer a larger proportion of managers than baby boomers at the end of 2025 or 2026. Gen Z already consists of one of ten managers.
Glass door
Since Millennials became the most populous generation in the employment population in the mid -2010s, they have steadily increased through the ranks, which are powered by the demographic inevitability, the retirement between baby boomers and new settings for organizational leadership. This ascent costs years of warnings and speculation about how a thousand -year -old values would affect the workplace.
In an interview with AssetsAccording to Zhao heirs Millennials a difficult situation, but it could be worse. The workers on the whole do not feel like in a great situation at the moment, but Zhao noticed that things have not worsened since the last issue of the report in January 2025.
Although ZHAO has not used these special gene Zlang, the state of the workforce is now managed by the majority of millennials Is medium. “At least it doesn’t seem that workers feel worse,” said Zhao. “I don’t know if you can call it a silver strip.”
Millennials that cope with the continued “burnout crisis”
Millennials are widely credited With pushing “empathy” And “Well -being”At the top of the management culture. They prioritize guidelines such as Long -distance workPresent psychological advantagesAnd there is a reason why Millennials emphasize mental health so much: they experience Record levels of burnoutStress and labor uncertainty themselves and lead some experts at the workplace to warn of an impending threat. “Manager crashIn 2025, Zhao agreed that this corresponds to anecdotes in Glassdoor reviews, but not the data in his research.
For his part, Zhao writes that the psychological challenges with which the current workforce is confronted shows “no signs of deposit”. He writes of burnout as a “persistent crisis”, with the exams of Glassdoor 73% mentioned in May 2025 compared to the previous year. Sub -occupation of employees who remain. “”
Of course, the term “burnout” was largely synonymous with the thousand -year -old generation in Anne Helen Petersen’s Viral 2019 Buzzfeed article On this topic that turned into a book and deep reporting in the coming years. In conversation with Petersen’s thesis that Millennials were born into a culture and a climate of constant work at a young age, the average number of direct reports per manager has almost doubled in recent years and has built burnout levels to the burnout generation, just like they become the majority of managers.
Zhao rejected it to comment directly on Petersen’s thesis, but in general, many thousand -year -old managers, especially those in the forties and late 30s, placed in the responsibility of the “Sandwich generation”, which were typical that Gen X were typical. Zhao added: “In a sense, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
Despite their ambitions, many thousand -year -old managers receive little to no formal leadership trainingOften unprepared to the complexity of the management of teams over several generations and react to quick organizational changes. This will deteriorate with double reports of the historical average. And while they emphasize empathy, Millennials are the generation that invented the term “Ghost pictures”For your avoidance behavior on social media and Many fight with assertiveness and management of conflicts at work frontal. After all, millennials are “Participation trophy“Generation and some bloody Tikok videos have argued that Millennial bosses have a toxic tendency to make friends with all direct reports.”Wolves in sheep clothing“,” They were called. Out.
The downside of emotional intelligence
Zhao told Assets The fact that the worn cliché over a thousand -year -old managers, who are known for their focus on empathy, has a flipside: Glassdoor has changed in the past five years since the pandemic, as people talk about management. “Checks in which management discusses increasingly emphasize terms in connection with emotional intelligence, e.g.” Respect boundaries “,” sensitive “,” promotion of the well -being of the employee “and” response to burnout “.
It does not mean that millennials are naturally given from emotional intelligence, Zhao said, only that it is expectation of their reports, be it with millennials, gen z or maybe even gen X or boomer. Zhao referred to the fact that the expression “emotional intelligence” really started in the 21st century. How ironic that the population, emotional intelligence has the workforce when entering the workforce, is now responsible for the administration.
Although millennials generally try to build trust and ensure recognition, Generations are divided: A remarkable minority of employees, in particular gen z, remains neutral or insecure about the recognition they receive. After a Comprehensive Deloitte surveyMillennials themselves want more feedback, mentor and growth opportunities, both for their teams and for their own career.
This may be the reason why millennials saddle with a dreaded nickname: the so -called “Cool boss. “” “The latest reporting and viral content for social media have criticism of thousands of year-old managers for the border between manager and friend heated-merchant times on disadvantageous effects.Wrong feeling of warmthThese masks are based on electricity dynamics. With regard to the results of results, the Cool Boss Act leads to inconsistent or unclear expectations that fuel fear among the employees. If a negative feedback is required, the cool boss that drops the mask can shock for your subordinates.
Many thousand -year -old managers report Difficulties in determining clear limits With their teams, in which they have difficulty coding from kindness to a significant manner, as situations require. The determination of limits is further complicated by generational shifts: younger employees, especially gen z, also prefer liquid limits and a flat hierarchySometimes the ambiguity in relation to roles and expectations intensify.
While Zhao did not comment directly on the so -called “Cool Boss” meme, he said that Millennial managers are currently going an “extremely difficult line”. Millennials are currently said to be at the peak of their career, but many also take care of children, parents, and even older family members. “About the care aspect,” said Zhao, “there were many discussions, especially since pandemic, about gaps … in today’s American economy.”
For this story, Assets Used generative AI to help with a first draft. An editor checked the accuracy of the information before publication.
