Bad bosses are pushing Gen Zers and millennials to the brink

A lackluster supervisor is enough to push most employees out the door, according to LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence survey. On average, 69% of workers would leave their job if they had a bad manager, according to the survey of more than 6,400 U.S. Employees conducted from June to July. 

It’s not completely shocking news, given the power that bosses have, that a bad egg might turn the whole workplace experience rotten. And the potential devastation a bad boss causes is a well-researched phenomenon, as a Gallup poll from almost a decade ago found that 50% of adults who left a job did so “to get away from their manager.”

Now, certain employees find a bad manager to be more of a dealbreaker than others. Younger generations seem to have slightly less tolerance for said behavior. While 61% of baby boomers and 68% of Gen Xers report a poor supervisor would spur a career search, that number increased to 75% for Gen Zers and 77% for millennials, per LinkedIn. 

Another potential factor is that younger employees are often more junior and therefore more at the behest of managers. Younger employees are also simply more likely to leave their jobs to get a pay raise, a tactic that becomes especially key for entry-level employees that make less than their older counterparts.

Read more: Our Gen Z employees thrive because we tailored our culture to suit them

And new studies have shown it’s often the most ambitious performers who find these managers to be most irritating. Employees motivated by career advancement are “strongly affected” by a toxic manager and end up cutting back on their “taking-charge behavior,” according to a peer-reviewed study from researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois, Chicago. 

Looking at bosses and employees from 40 companies in South Korea and hundreds of responses from U.S. Students, researchers found the prototypical go-getter is especially deterred by bad management. Those who are more interested in simply job security are less deterred by these bad apples, as they’re perhaps less focused on a promotion than simply keeping onto their gig.

Furthermore, high-performing women are especially at risk of quitting when a boss is not great at giving feedback. That’s in part because they’re already fielding the brunt of sexist performance reviews. Just 2% of high-achieving men received negative feedback from their bosses. That number spikes to 76% of high-achieving women, according to a new report from Texio. The software company warns this form of unactionable feedback that is often based on a woman’s personality can create poor performance and weaken employee morale.

Our workforce is also simply characterized by a large swath of people (including bosses) feeling dissatisfied with their jobs and becoming checked out. “Managers simply are not showing up for their employees,” Corey Tatel, coauthor of the report and research associate at Gallup, told Coins2Day. His peer, Ben Wigert, explained that “pep rallies and empty promises will only further frustrate” these employees are feeling disconnected from their work’s mission and reporting unclear expectations. 

Indeed, the phenomenon labeled as quiet quitting was revealed by Harvard Business Review to be more about a manager’s ability to create a strong relationship with an employee than about an employee simply not wanting to work. But, as we know, bosses are feeling checked out too. 

During the pandemic, the middle manager’s job anecdotally became an even less fun job as companies implemented polarizing return-to-work policies. Reports of increasing burnout cropped up as managers felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. And many managers are not being set up for success, or lack the sufficient training to be a good boss. 

A whopping 82% of bosses were deemed “accidental managers,” according to the Chartered Management Institute survey of 4,500 workers and managers in the U.K. That’s a rise from 68% when CMI measured in 2019. Not many people are looking at the managerial gig with starry eyes, as LinkedIn found that only one-third of workers aspire to the position. Perhaps that’s because they know what it’s like to have a bad manager in the first place.