Elle De Freitas has the kind of jam-packed schedule you’d expect of a typical CEO running a successful social-media marketing company.
As founder and head of Austin, Texas-based Wonderkind, she has meetings with her eight-person leadership team to discuss new business; calls with clients about their Instagram and TikTok campaigns; pitch sessions with prospects; and a weekly all-hands update with her 50 employees.
What makes De Freitas stand out is her age: at 31, she is younger than most chief executives, and her entire C-suite is comprised of Gen Z professionals no older than 26.
It may be unconventional for such a green leader to helm a company – with such a young executive team to boot. Still, De Freitas believes she’s up for the task. Even though she often asks herself whether she’s “qualified” or “ready for the job”, she says, “every good decision I make allows me to feel more confident in my leadership abilities”.
Corporate leadership is traditionally associated with experience and age. The conventional wisdom is it takes many years to accumulate the knowledge and expertise needed to run a company.
Today, however, new generations of workers are challenging this idea. As young millennials and even Gen Zers ascend to leadership positions – some founding companies, others running major initiatives and teams within established enterprises – they’re bringing fresh perspectives, new approaches and a different mindset to management.
These young people are eager to take the reins and redefine leadership – but are they ready?
Elle De Freitas is part of a young generation of workers challenging ideas about corporate leadership and management (Credit: Mack Eveland)
The experience gap
Leaders are getting younger.
Nearly a third of newly appointed S&P 500 CEOs last year were younger than 50, which is more than twice the rate in 2018, according to a June 2023 research note from McKinsey & Company. And although the average CEO is still roughly aged 54, some data shows younger people are increasingly motivated to move into top positions: for instance, a 2021 EY survey of about 1,500 Gen Zers showed 45% said they are very or extremely likely to start a business.
But youthfulness can sometimes be an obstacle to effective leadership, according to management experts.
For instance, young people haven’t yet navigated a variety of economic cycles, or had time to develop all the institutional knowledge needed to run a company. Perhaps most importantly, they might not have the emotional intelligence or the necessary soft skills – the ability to adapt to change, manage conflict and foster morale – to manage a workforce.
“All leaders have blind spots,” says Caroline Webb, leadership coach, author and senior adviser at McKinsey – and young people tend to have more of them, due to their lack of workforce experience. “When you’re earlier in your career, you don’t yet have pattern recognition and an awareness of your shortcomings and biases.”
For instance, most leaders eventually must coach an underperforming employee or steer their organizations through an economic downturn. They’ll need to trim budgets and sometimes even cut jobs. Over time, leaders learn – by observation at first, and through action later – that there are humane, graceful and effective ways to do this.
And although hubris has no age limit, young leaders tend to be overconfident – something that can set them back, says Sir Cary Cooper, CBE, a professor at Alliance Manchester Business School, UK. “The main negative is that younger people don’t know how much they don’t know,” he says. “They don’t yet have a realistic view of themselves and their strengths and weaknesses.”
Diverse, open-minded and digitally savvy
Yet experts say that Gen Z’s youth and professional greenness may have benefits.
For instance, says Webb, although years in the workforce can instil valuable wisdom, it may also lead to stale thinking. Young people may have the advantage of approaching leadership without the institutional blinders that often stifle innovation.
“Your job as a leader is to come up with creative solutions to problems that have not yet been solved,” she says. “This can be more difficult when you’ve been operating in an existing way of doing things. But younger people aren’t bound by those preconceived notions – and this can create freer thinking.”
Generations aren’t monoliths, but experts note Gen Z’s particular sensibilities and attributes are a good fit for the challenges and opportunities of our time. Data from the Pew Research Center shows Gen Z is the most ethnically diverse and best-educated generation in US history. A separate report from the non-profit Annie E Casey Foundation suggests that Gen Zers are, by and large, progressive, inclusive and tech-savvy. They grew up with smartphones in their pockets and have an intuitive grasp of technology.
“This generation is defined by its diversity, its openness and its ability to navigate a fast-changing world,” says Cooper. “These are exactly the qualities we need in leaders today.”
Many Gen X and millennial workers are comfortable using digital technology. But, says Cooper, Gen Z’s innate digital dexterity, compared with older generations’, gives them an edge. “The digital era has changed the way we live, work and interact with the world. Understanding these nuances is essential for the future,” he says. “Gen Z can help us make the most of the digital age.”
Jake Bjorseth dropped out of college and now runs a 30 person advertising agency (Credit: Jake Bjorseth)
‘I knew in my soul’
Some young leaders are aware that they may not have traditional leadership traits – and are leaning into their youthfulness and blind faith to inspire and succeed in their roles.
In 2018, Jake Bjorseth, dropped out of college to pursue a business idea for a Gen Z consulting firm. Today, Bjorseth, 24, runs US-based Trndsttrs, a 30-person ad agency that’s created marketing content for brands including Denny’s, Loreal and The North Face.
In the beginning, he says he was painfully aware that he lacked much of the experience, network and formal education of his older professional counterparts. “Everyone around me told me I was making a mistake,” he says. “But I knew in my soul, subconscious or whatever you want to call it, that if my back was against the wall with no other option, I would figure it out.”
He says was initially surprised when, in 2020, McDonald’s hired his team to create a video thanking essential workers in the early days of Covid-19. “But when the company told us they wanted to reach 18-to-21-year-olds, I realised: we are those consumers. We know these social media platforms inside and out. We haven’t spent years in corporate, and that can be to our advantage.”
Wonderkind’s De Freitas agrees. She says her team’s youth is a boon to the business – for the most part. “They’re creative thinkers. They’re not stuck in their ways. They don’t accept processes and rules just because someone 25 years ago said there was one way to do something.”
Still, occasionally, she says she comes up against problems that she has a hard time solving on her own – and since her team members have even less experience than she has, she can’t necessarily go to them for answers. “So, I turn to mentors and other people I respect. I ask: ‘how did you solve this?’,” she says.
Ultimately, there is no one right age for leadership, say management experts. Inexperience can be both positive and negative. Youth is both an asset and a liability. The right age to lead depends on the individual and the situation, says Webb.
After all, people don’t magically gain the smarts, charisma and self-awareness to guide a company and manage a workforce once they hit their 50s. “I work with plenty of older leaders who lack self-awareness,” she says. “It’s not binary.”
