What Gen Z can teach us about commanding respect in the workplace

Gen Z founders may not have spent as much time in the workplace when they started their companies as some older founders. But in some ways, that gives them unique insight that can be valuable for leaders.

For Katie Diasti and Anam Lakhani, a disconnect from the work they were doing as interns has helped to shape their leadership style. Specifically, those experiences inspired them to ensure that all of their team members feel a sense of both ownership and impact for the work they’re doing. 

“I remember interning and creating a whole deck and making a whole presentation, but never being allowed to be in the room that the presentation was in,” recalled Diasti, founder and CEO of Viv Period Care, speaking at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “Now, as we have team members creating something, I want them to see the holistic approach—I want them to see every metric of the business and the goal, because that actually motivates them to feel that ownership and that trust.”

Lakhani, meanwhile, was inspired to co-found the Alinea Invest app during college to make investing more accessible to her generation—and likewise, she drew on her experience interning in investment banking on Wall Street to ensure her company’s work felt both meaningful and impactful.

“One thing I knew when starting my company is I wanted every day to feel like you were moving the company forward, that you were having an impact on the user experience, that you were driving something forward,” she said.

Balancing what they know—and don’t know

Being a disruptive founder—and especially at a young age—requires a balancing act of sorts.

On the one hand, young founders don’t have the “baggage” of longheld expectations about how things are done. But they must also have good mentors, and a sense of humility to navigate managing people who are several decades older, said Liam Ryan, CEO of Streetleaf, which designs, installs, and maintains solar streetlights throughout the U.S.

And while it’s important internally to foster a sense that everyone in the company is on the same team, interacting with outside stakeholders requires being confident in the expertise you as a leader have acquired when encountering outdated stigmas, Ryan added.

“When we first started doing this like five, six, years ago, we’d come into the room and they’d roll their eyes like, ‘The Gen Z solar people are here,’” Ryan recalled. “But when we showed that our products are not only more economical, but also sustainable, it got more people listening to what we’re doing, not just one part of the equation.”

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