Nearly half of workers — regardless of their age — say they do not want management roles, potentially reshaping the leadership pipelines businesses depend on for the development of high-level finance talent.
That finding is based on a U.S. employee survey conducted by online resume builder Zety, which, in late 2025, captured how workers across generations view management, job mobility and workplace communication.
When comparing those findings to a recent report from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants — which examines how career paths in finance and accounting are shifting under the influence of technology — demographics and changing expectations of work, it’s clear that the changing dynamics of human capital are becoming a multifaceted CFO issue.
When analyzed together, the findings provide some insight on the current human capital challenges of the CFO and describe a workforce in which interest in traditional management roles is weakening because career structures have become more wellness-driven, flexible, skills-based and less linear. This, according to both data sets, is reshaping leadership development, talent economics and organizational design.
Leadership ambition and changing expectations
The Zety survey shows a broad shift in how workers view management roles. Nearly half (49%) of respondents say they have no interest in becoming a manager and prefer to remain individual contributors. A similar amount (48%) say they believe younger employees are even less interested in management roles than older colleagues.
When asked what discourages leadership ambitions, most respondents (59%) cite a desire to avoid stress and people management responsibilities. Nearly a fifth (15%) point to work-life balance concerns, while one in 10 cite a lack of confidence or skills for management. Some ambition remains present among younger cohorts, however, as more than a third of both millennials (36%) and Gen Z (35%) say they aspire to become managers or people leaders.
These attitudes align with broader shifts in career structures. ACCA’s research finds that future career paths in finance and accounting are becoming more flexible, with shorter-term roles increasingly common.
More than half of finance professionals surveyed in the ACCA report say they are optimistic about their future careers (54%), while just over a quarter (27%) are pessimistic and nearly half (49%) feel uncertain about their preparedness for change. Respondents most frequently described future career paths in terms of uncertainty and challenges (28%), followed by growth and advancement (23%) and flexibility and adaptability (17%).
Career mobility and structural shifts
As younger workers embrace job mobility over loyalty, long-term roles within the same organization are becoming increasingly rare. In a recent interview, Astellas Pharmaceutical CFO Atsushi Kitamura spoke about the waning of employee loyalty in Japan. Although loyalty was once a staple of Japanese business culture, he said, younger workers in Japan have completely upended this long-standing professional phenomenon in that country.
In the U.S., two-thirds of U.S. workers in the Zety survey say younger employees are more likely to change jobs frequently than older generations, reflecting the same view that long-term tenure is becoming less common regardless of location.
ACCA’s global findings provide a structural context for how these trends apply more specifically to finance. Career paths in the profession are increasingly shaped by flexibility, adaptability and continuous skill development rather than long-term progression within a single organization, their data says. The findings show future career trajectories are becoming more adaptive to intangibles like opportunity and circumstance.
The ACCA research also indicates many professionals anticipate roles becoming more broadly defined and less tied to rigid job descriptions, signaling a move toward skills-based and project-driven work structures. These developments reshape the economics of talent, particularly in things like shorter tenures, smaller training investments and less institutional knowledge retention. Succession planning timelines may also compress, and the return on investment in leadership development, employee upskilling and systems training becomes harder to forecast.
Communication, skills and the future of finance teams
The Zety survey shows communication differences remain a central challenge in today’s workforce. Seventy-one percent of employees describe collaboration across generations as a source of strength, while nearly a third (29%) say it creates friction. Close to half (46%) of respondents identify Gen Z’s communication style as the most difficult to navigate.
ACCA’s research highlights why this shift also applies to finance, as communication and interpersonal skills are becoming more critical in finance roles that will eventually be held by Gen Z-born leaders. And, as career paths become more fluid and roles less defined by job descriptions, adaptability and communication increasingly shape professional performance.
Structural changes in the finance profession are reinforcing these dynamics. ACCA projects declining demand for traditional transactional roles and expanding demand for data, analytics and transformation functions. As automation absorbs routine accounting work, finance teams are shifting toward higher-value roles in analytics, transformation and strategic decision support.
Ultimately, these shifts are changing how finance teams are structured and developed. Leadership pathways are becoming less predictable as technical specialists and strategic finance roles expand within the same function. Communication and collaboration now play a larger role in financial decision-making, risk assessment and execution.
As a result, talent models increasingly prioritize adaptability, continuous skills development and individual expertise over traditional hierarchical career progression, a pattern that is becoming more common in the multigenerational workforce.
