Gen Z does not need your answers. It needs your right questions.

The most studied generation in history is teaching us something fundamental about what it truly means to work with meaning, freedom, and belonging. And it challenges every parent, teacher, coach, manager, and leader to do the same.

It is a fact I have carried with me for some time — in classrooms, in coaching sessions, in my speech at the European Parliament with Longevitas, and in conversations with managers at Philip Morris.

46% of Gen Z young professionals report experiencing frequent anxiety about the future. And at the same time, many of them are willing to leave a stable job if meaning is lacking — something that was practically unheard of in previous generations at the same age.

Two seemingly contradictory facts. Enormous anxiety about the future, and the ability — or courage — to give up security if the work lacks meaning.

As a coach, as HR, as a manager, as a parent, as a teacher: understanding this contradiction is not an option. It is the work.

Gen Z is not difficult. It is different. And the difference matters.

Before talking about how to work with Gen Z, it is worth stopping interpreting it through the lenses of previous generations.

What is often read as a “lack of patience” is actually a deep need for transparency and honesty. What seems like an “unreasonable demand” is actually the search for alignment between personal values and the work context. What appears as “questioning authority” is actually the need for psychological safety — an environment where one can speak up without it becoming a risk.

Gen Z is not rebellious for the sake of it. Its behaviors are signals. And the task of a good parent, a good teacher, a good coach, or a good leader is not to correct those signals. It is to read them.

I am reminded of a phrase I encountered during a workshop at the ICF Converge Summit in Paris: “When we meet resistance with curiosity rather than correction, we unlock potential that compliance could never access.”

Three questions change the entire approach:

• What future is this person trying to build?
• What value is asking to be expressed?
• What should be honored in this resistance?

The three drivers that, across every culture, predict everything

Three engines drive engagement, motivation, resilience, and the emergence of leadership in Gen Z — in different cultural contexts, in different sectors, in different countries. They are not passing trends. They are structural needs.

Meaning

For Gen Z, work is inseparable from identity. It is not just what one does; it is who one is becoming through what one does. Meaning is not a luxury, it is not a prize for those who can afford it. It is the baseline condition. Without meaning, the psychological contract with the organization — or with the coach, or with the teacher — breaks.

The questions that open this space are not “what do you want to achieve?” but rather: “What impact do you want to create? What would make this truly meaningful for you?”

Freedom

Note: freedom for Gen Z is not anarchy. It is not doing whatever one wants without consequences. Their idea of freedom is deeply linked to ownership — to the responsibility for one’s choices, to the awareness of the impact they have, and to intentional decisions aligned with one’s values.

Asking “Where do you want more autonomy? What would it be like to make a truly conscious choice here?” activates a type of engagement that no control system can ever generate.

Belonging

This is perhaps the most surprising fact, and at the same time the most urgent. Gen Z is the most digitally connected generation in history, yet it experiences some of the highest recorded levels of isolation and loneliness. Harvard research is clear: employees who experience a genuine sense of belonging show 56% higher performance and a significantly lower turnover risk.

Belonging is not a “nice to have” cultural element. It is a performance variable. For Gen Z in particular, it is the psychological foundation that makes risk-taking, creativity, and authentic leadership possible.

Trust is built through presence, not credentials

Gen Z does not trust credentials. It trusts consistency. It does not tolerate performative leadership — the kind that prioritizes image over substance, communicates with pre-packaged scripts, and says one thing while doing another.

This applies in coaching sessions, in the classroom, at the dinner table, in the office: “Trust is built through presence before expertise. Gen Z values the quality of attention and genuine interest more than credentials or experience alone.”

This has concrete implications. If you are a coach and in a session you are already thinking about the next question while the Gen Z coachee is speaking — they feel it. If you are a manager and ask questions without truly expecting an answer — they know it. If you are a parent or a teacher and your openness is performative, if your declared values do not match your behaviors — they read it in seconds.

The good news is that the opposite is equally true. When presence is authentic, when interest is real, when consistency is visible — the level of openness and trust that emerges is extraordinary.

Three new muscles. For everyone, not just for coaches.

Here we must emphasize an important awareness: working with Gen Z requires developing new skills. Not as a replacement for traditional ones — which remain essential — but in addition to them. And when I say “working,” I mean everything: coaching, teaching, parenting, managing.

Holding the Paradox

The ability to keep contradictions open without rushing to resolve or simplify them. Gen Z lives in continuous paradoxes: ambitious yet skeptical, connected yet isolated, expressive yet emotionally cautious. Those who learn to stay in the paradox without resolution anxiety create a space for authentic transformation.

Cultural Fluidity

The ability to adapt the approach across different cultural contexts. Gen Z is global in mind, even when local in geography. Cultural fluidity is not about knowing everything about every culture. It is about being genuinely curious, suspending assumptions, and learning to read the same behavior through different lenses.

Values Excavation

The ability to help others bring to the surface the deep values that guide behaviors and choices. For Gen Z, values are not an exercise to be done once and then archived. They are the common thread of every conversation, every decision, every relationship.

A reflection to close

By 2030, Gen Z will represent one-third of the global workforce. This is not a distant statistic. In organizations, in teams, in coaching sessions, in classrooms, in families — it is happening now.

The question is not whether we must learn to work with them. The question is how much we are willing to let them teach us.

Because Gen Z — with its anxiety about the future, its radical need for meaning, its intolerance for everything performative — is asking us to be authentic. Completely, radically authentic.

And this, ultimately, is the most honest challenge coaching has ever received.

But not just coaching.

It is the challenge for parents, managers, and teachers.

For anyone who has the responsibility — and the privilege — of accompanying someone in becoming who they are.

If you work with Gen Z — as a coach, HR, leader, teacher, or parent — and want to explore these topics further, please write to me.