Millennial founder's best career advice for Gen Z: 'You don't get what you don't ask for'

CNBC

22-05-2025

Amanda Litman was just 26 when she co-founded Run For Something, a political organization that recruits and supports young, diverse candidates running for down-ballot office, in 2017.
As Run for Something grew, Litman found that in order to become the kind of leader she wanted to be — compassionate, transparent, effective and accountable — she would have to look outside traditional models of leadership.
Millennials and Gen Z are more diverse than previous generations, "so our leadership quite literally looks different," she says. "The models that worked for the old white men of the last three centuries don't necessarily make sense for us."
In the eight years she's served as president of Run for Something, Litman, 35, has watched fellow millennial and Gen Z leaders make fundamental changes to workplace culture as they rise to top positions.
Litman drew on her own experiences, as well as interviews with other millennial and Gen Z leaders like Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel, comedian and producer Ilana Glazer, and activist David Hogg, for her new book "When We're In Charge: The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership."
Here's her advice for the latest crop of leaders.
According to Litman, the best professional advice she's ever received is "You don't get what you don't ask for."
This advice rings true no matter where you are on the career ladder, she says. For leaders, clarity is crucial when setting expectations for employees.
"You have a responsibility to make it clear what you are expecting, what you need, what you want out of people, and you want to make it as easy as possible for them to satisfy your demands," she says.
On the other end, Litman encourages early-career professionals to put themselves out there: "If you want help from someone, if you want time on someone's calendar, if you want to have coffee with that person you've never had a chance to interact with, you need to ask for it."
"The worst thing that happens is someone says no," she says. "The best thing that happens is they say yes, and you don't know what doors might open for you."
Litman is heartened to see emerging leaders taking charge and making changes in the workplace. One crucial difference she notices between today's leaders and previous generations is that the younger generation of leaders is particularly focused on creating a healthy, supportive work culture.
The Gen Z leaders Litman spoke to "really thought about the well-being of their teams," she says. "They thought about how to bring a sort of joy to the work in a way that I found really refreshing."
Though Gen Z is often stereotyped in the workforce as lazy, unreliable, or difficult, Litman pushes back against those perceptions.
"I think Gen Z wants a better balance between work and life, because they have seen how work can let you down," she says. "The career ladders that we thought we could climb no longer exist. The institutions that you thought you'd be able to work for are going through rolling layoffs. So why make your whole life about your job?"
She advises Gen Z leaders to "take what works and leave what doesn't" when developing their leadership philosophies.
"Don't assume that the way things were done yesterday has to be the way they're done tomorrow. You should know how things were done yesterday, but that doesn't dictate the future. You actually have a lot of agency over what could happen," she says.
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