We Called That Grit

I stepped away from my career at its peak to raise my family. When I came back I expected to find the landscape my generation had been building. The one we wrote the books about. The research we cited. The leadership models we championed.

Instead I found high turnover and people who said they felt like janitors. Young people showing up hungry with nobody willing to meet them. Concrete plans for making things better sitting on a shelf while leadership chose their own comfort over the people on the front line.

We know what works. It’s not a secret. Feedback and coaching. Belonging. A real seat at the table. A voice that matters. Not ping pong tables and beer fridges — actual investment in people. We’ve had decades of research, books, and winning teams proving this over and over.

And yet, I watch my own generation dismiss the next one. A young person starts a new job excited to contribute and learns quickly that nobody has time for them. Interns show up hungry to learn and nobody will step up to lead them because it takes too much time. We call their frustration entitlement.

Here’s what I actually see: a generation that can smell inauthenticity from a mile away, that wants real feedback and coaching, that won’t stay in a toxic environment and call it work ethic.

We stayed. We called that grit. Maybe it was. I think we just normalized something we should have challenged.

We wrote the books on building effective teams. We know how to develop people, build belonging, create cultures worth showing up for. The answer isn’t complicated. The commitment is.

The next generation doesn’t need us to figure it out. We already did that. They need us to actually do it. To show up.