When your best young people keep turning down promotions, you don’t have a motivation problem. You have a succession problem. Here are six moves CEOs can make to rebuild a thinning leadership bench, starting at the top.
The short version: Gen Z hasn't lost its ambition and isn't lazy. It looked hard at what a promotion actually costs and decided the trade wasn't worth it. In Deloitte's global survey, the young workers who avoid leadership name two reasons: burnout and "too much...
CEO turnover is at a 15-year high.
AI is compressing teams.
Boards are less patient.
If the corner office isn’t safe, what makes you think your role is?
Titles won’t protect you. Tenure won’t protect you. Past performance won’t protect you.
Alignment will. Scalability will. Talent leadership will.
In this environment, you are either actively securing your position — or quietly making yourself replaceable.
Which one are you doing?
Top talent is no longer Googling “best companies to work for.” They’re asking AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity for recommendations. These systems don’t return a list of links. They generate answers based on authority, credibility, and digital footprint. If your employer branding strategy hasn’t evolved to account for how generative AI surfaces companies, you are invisible before the recruiting conversation even begins.
Employer branding feels strategic because it is easier than fixing leadership. When the internal employee experience does not match the external promise, trust erodes quickly. No branding strategy can compensate for poor management.
Finding the right talent that will prosper and stay is even harder when you do it alone.
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Subscribe to Roberta's Talent Maximizer® and receive weekly insights to help you hire and retain top performers. PLUS receive The Evergreen Talent® Workbook for free - a guide to help you hire and cultivate a sustainable workforce.
Subscribe to Roberta's Talent Maximizer® and receive weekly insights to help you hire and retain top performers. PLUS receive The Evergreen Talent® Workbook for free - a guide to help you hire and cultivate a sustainable workforce.