Navigating the Z-Suite: A Gen Z’s perspective on leadership communication

Generation Z, often referred to as “Gen Z,” encompasses individuals who were born between 1997 and 2012. These individuals vary in age, currently ranging from 13 to 29. As someone born in 2000, I would categorize myself as one of the “older” Gen Zers who have been in the workforce for at least a few years. In January of 2025, I embarked upon my journey in the University of Charleston’s Doctor of Executive Leadership program. Since then, my understanding of leadership has expanded from viewing “being a leader” through the lens of job titles and formal authority into recognizing it as a way of moving through the world, both professionally and within my personal life.

Leadership lives in the values we practice, the responsibilities we accept, and the influence that we have on others.

This influence often begins well before a leadership title has been earned. We lead when we offer advice in times of uncertainty, take the initiative on a new project, speak up when others remain silent, or choose integrity when it’s difficult to do so. Principles of leadership are revealed in our countless everyday interactions, in both organizations and our personal lives alike.

At the heart of leadership is the practice of communication. A leader’s message is never defined solely by the words that are spoken, but it’s instead deciphered through what those words allow others to understand. Communication is not what you say. It’s what people are able to do with it.

Communication: The most under-utilized leadership tool you already have

Executive responsibility begins with understanding that leadership is built through communication. If I could be bold for a moment, I would even claim that communication may very well be the core foundation for leadership, as I believe that leaders are understood by how their words and actions are interpreted and carried onward by others.

Communication as a construct can be characterized as the “sine qua non” of leadership, defined as an essential and indispensable condition that allows leadership to be understood as both planned and unplanned, as well as both intentional and unintentional, shaped by both the leader and their followers¹. In simple terms, this means that communication is what makes leadership possible. Leaders do not solely communicate through carefully planning their messages or by role-playing their delivery. Leadership communication, instead, is most often observed by followers through unintended signals, spontaneous interactions, and in the ways that both leaders and followers alike initiate, interpret, and respond to one another each day. If my point hasn’t already become clear, I’ll restate it for you: Communication is NOT simply a leadership skill. It is the mechanism by which leadership shifts from being theoretical to something real and tangible. Without communication, authority is just a title. With it, influence becomes possible irrespective of your job level within your organization.

Language & its Influence on Decision-Making

Communication isn’t just using “lots of words” and “getting your point across”. The language you use matters and has a measurable impact on the quality of your influence on followers’ decision-making.

Motivating Language Theory (MLT), originally introduced by Jeremiah Sullivan in 1988² and later expanded by Mayfield & Mayfield, explains how leaders use direction-giving, empathetic, and meaning-making language to strengthen relationships, clarify expectations, and connect employees’ work to a larger purpose. Through studying MLT, Mayfield & Mayfield discovered a few compelling truths: leaders who communicate with direction (telling people what to do), empathy (acknowledging how others feel), and meaning (explaining why the work matters) produce measurably better decision-making in their teams than leaders who rely on directive communication alone³.

Lee & Dong build on this idea in their 2023 research, finding that when leaders at all levels (including CEOs, supervisors, and peers) communicate openly about organizational goals and decisions, employees develop a stronger sense of relational identification within their organizations⁴. This means that employees start to view themselves as connected to the organization itself, seeing its value, purpose, and success as something they are personally invested in, rather than simply expected to support. When transparent communication emerges from leadership, employees shift from just “carrying out the work” to speaking on the organization’s behalf, becoming advocates for the purpose they’re helping bring to life.

How Collective Communication Changes Decisions

I’ve touched on why communication matters for leadership, but I’ve not yet discussed its importance in team communication. Communication is how teams make sense of difficult situations together. It allows individual contributors to share their insights, focus on what matters, and coordinate decisions across different roles. Communication is essential to collective leadership because it helps teams define priorities, understand shared problems, recognize who has the right expertise for the situation at hand, and decide where leadership should come from in any given moment⁵.

To take this a step further, 2019 research from Evdokimov & Garfagnini shows that communication norms within organizations (meaning: the unwritten rules about who speaks when, and about what) shape individual decision-making in ways that are more powerful than formal structures of authority⁶. In other words, the culture of communication you build and sustain with your team matters more than your title.

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So, what does this mean for those of us in the “Z-Suite” who don’t hold a formal leadership title?

It means that leadership is already happening. It means that you must remove any illusion that you currently hold of being “under-qualified” or thinking that your day-to-day actions have little to no influence or perceived significance.

You are a leader in the way you show up for your team, the way you speak to others, your depth of listening, interpretation of events, and in your responses to complex and uncertain situations. Every conversation that you have has the potential to create clarity or instill confusion, foster trust or create distance, and (but not limited to) produce movement or hesitation.

The words we choose matter, but so do the environments we create for others to contribute, question, and make sense of what is happening around them. Leadership communication is not about being the smartest person in the room or the executive with the highest job title. Leadership communication is about helping the people that you influence understand why their work matters, where they’re going, and how we can all move forward together.

Dear Gen Z,

As we continue to enter and shape the workforce, perhaps our greatest opportunity is not to wait until we have been given the permission to lead, but instead to recognize that we’re already leading each and every day.

Perspective Matters.

Practicing communication is practicing leadership.

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References

[1] Ruben, B., & Gigliotti, R. (2017). Communication: Sine Qua Non of Organizational Leadership Theory and Practice. International Journal of Business Communication, 54(1). https://doi.org/DOI:%2010.1177/2329488416675447

[2] O’Quinn, K. (2020). The language of leaders: Motivating people to act. Association for Talent Development. https://www.td.org/content/atd-blog/the-language-of-leaders-motivating-people-to-act

[3] Mayfield, M., & Mayfield, J. (2015). The effects of leader motivating language use on employee decision making. International Journal of Business Communication, 53(4), 465–484. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488415572787

[4] Lee, Y., & Dong, E. (2023). How transparent internal communication from CEO, supervisors, and peers leads to employee advocacy. Management Communication Quarterly, 34(4), 878–912. https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189231153869

[5] Friedrich, T. L., Griffith, J. A., & Mumford, M. D. (2016). Collective leadership behaviors: Evaluating the leader, team network, and problem situation characteristics that influence their use. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(2), 312–333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.02.004

[6] Evdokimov, P., & Garfagnini, U. (2019). Communication and behavior in organizations: An experiment. Journal of Economic Society, 10, 775–801. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3982/QE809