New Cangrade Research Reveals Growing Divide Between Individual Performance and Leadership Skills Among Gen Z and Millennials

Analysis of more than 71,000 assessments finds results-oriented skills are rising while leadership, collaboration, and critical thinking capabilities decline

WATERTOWN, Mass., Oct. 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cangrade, the AI candidate screening platform, released its Workforce Capability Index, new research revealing a growing workforce gap. While Gen Z and Millennial employees excel as individual contributors, key leadership, collaboration, and critical thinking skills are declining. Based on 71,747 real job assessments, the Index tracks shifts across 40 workplace competencies and 16 drivers.

The research found Results Orientation grew by 1.11%, the largest gain, alongside increases in Negotiation, Persuasion, Consistency, Self-Direction, and Competition. Conversely, eight of nine leadership and teamwork competencies dropped. Fostering Teamwork fell 0.65%, while Leadership, Delegation, Coaching, and Consensus Building ranked below average. Integrity saw the sharpest overall decline, falling 0.87%.

Other findings include:

• Critical Thinking and reasoning skills are moving in the wrong direction. Critical Thinking, Innovation, Creative Problem Solving, and Analytical Reasoning all fell year over year, just as AI increases the demand for complex evaluation and questioning assumptions.
• Gen Z and Millennials increasingly favor stability over novelty. Novelty ranked last among 16 drivers, dropping another 1.60%, while Structure rose 0.60%, challenging the belief that younger workers prefer fast-changing environments.
• Compensation still isn't a dominant motivation. Compensation experienced the largest motivational jump (+2.26%), yet still ranks 15 out of 16, signaling financial pressure rather than a fundamental shift in core workplace drivers.
• Competition is rising while Appreciation declines. Competition grew 1.35% while Appreciation dropped 0.73%. Combined with gains in Results Orientation, workers are increasingly focused on measurable outcomes and internal benchmarks.

“AI is useful for many aspects of job performance, but it can’t turn a high performer into a great leader. This makes the decline in leadership and teamwork skills even more concerning,” said Gershon Goren, Founder and CEO, Cangrade. “As younger workers enter management, HR leaders must intentionally develop human skills like coaching, delegation, collaboration, and judgment.”

To close this gap, HR leaders can:

• Assess leadership potential before promoting. Evaluate skills like Coaching, Delegation, Consensus Building, and Leadership directly rather than assuming strong individual performance will translate to strong management.
• Develop managers before they get the title. Build Leadership and People-Management development into career paths early.
• Pair AI adoption with critical thinking development. Train employees not only to use AI tools, but to question, evaluate, and improve their outputs, strengthening the judgment and reasoning skills AI can’t replace.
• Give emerging leaders clear structure and feedback. Set explicit expectations, measurable goals, and frequent feedback to help employees translate their growing results orientation into effective leadership.
• Track leadership and reasoning skills over time. Monitor whether Leadership, Collaboration, and Critical-Thinking capabilities are improving as AI adoption grows, and adjust talent development strategies accordingly.
  
  

To access the full Workforce Capability Index or learn more about Cangrade’s AI hiring solutions, visit www.cangrade.com.

About Cangrade
For HR leaders, Cangrade is the AI candidate screening platform. By building custom candidate screening flows instantly, Cangrade fuels talent decisions that improve business and employee outcomes throughout the entire talent lifecycle. Delivering 10x more accurate predictions of talent success and retention than traditional methods, the company's screening solutions have helped organizations like Wayfair, FDNY, Lamar Advertising, and Applied Industrial Technologies make the right hiring decisions for over 10 million candidates and counting. Cangrade was named to TIME's America's Top WorkTech Companies of 2026. For more information, visit www.cangrade.com.

Media Contact:
Gina Devine
Public Relations, Cangrade
gina@versionpublicrelations.com