🤔 Dear Lewis, what is the Gen Z Stare and why is my team doing it?

A marketing director discovers her team's "Gen Z Stare" isn't generational defiance—it's a mirror reflecting her own leadership style.

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Here we are again, my friends, back for another installment of Dear Lewis.

Today's story comes from a client I'll call Kerrin (not her real name). She's the Director of Marketing at a 500-person industrial company in Northern California. Smart, accomplished, results-driven. She came to me five days ago, absolutely bewildered by her team of 21-23 year old junior marketing professionals.

"Lewis," she said during our first session, "I need your help figuring out what's wrong with my team. They're exhibiting this blank, emotionless, deadpan facial expression whenever I give them assignments or feedback. I just learned about something called the 'Gen Z Stare' on TikTok this week."

The Gen Z Stare, for those unfamiliar, is a viral behavior where Gen Z adopts a blank, unreadable expression—usually while making direct eye contact. It's intentionally emotionless. Not aggressive, but deliberately opaque. A studied detachment that puts the viewer on edge.

"I think that's what I'm seeing," Kerrin continued. "Can you help me confirm this diagnosis?"

I asked her to walk me through a specific example.

"Two days ago, I gave Jenna feedback on her social media campaign. I told her the engagement metrics were disappointing and that she needed to be more strategic about her content pillars. She just... stared at me. No expression. No response. Just this blank look that felt almost confrontational."

I paused. "How exactly did you deliver this feedback?"

"Well, I mean, I was direct. I said, 'Jenna, these numbers are unacceptable. If you can't figure out how to create content that actually resonates with our audience, maybe we need to reassess your role on this team. I'm not asking for miracles here, but I am asking for basic competence.'"

The room went quiet.

"Kerrin," I said gently, "can you hear how that sounded?"

"I was being honest. That's what good leaders do—they give direct feedback."

Here's where the conversation took an interesting turn. Because as we dove deeper into Kerrin’s examples, a pattern emerged. The Gen Z Stare wasn't random. It wasn't generational laziness. It was a response.

A defense mechanism.

"Let me ask you something," I said. "When you don't get the reaction you want from Jenna, what do you do next?"

"I escalate. I might mention it to my boss, or bring it up in our team meeting as an example of what not to do. I make it clear that this kind of performance won't be tolerated."

"And how do you make that clear?"

Kerrin's voice got sharper. "I raise my voice. I use examples. I make sure everyone understands the consequences of mediocrity."

The picture was becoming clearer. Kerrin wasn't dealing with a mysterious generational quirk. She was experiencing the natural result of her own communication style.

The Gen Z Stare, I explained, is often a cultural response to performative outrage and emotional overreach. When someone weaponizes emotional expression—using volume, moral judgment, and threats to control behavior—the natural response is to withdraw. To become emotionally unreadable.

"But I'm not being performative," Kerrin protested. "I'm being a leader."

"Kerrin, let me ask you this: When you deliver feedback, are you more focused on the person hearing your message, or on making sure they understand how serious you are?"

Long pause.

"I... I want them to understand the gravity of the situation."

"And how do you create that gravity?"

Another pause. "I guess... I make sure my voice conveys the seriousness. I don't sugarcoat things."

We spent the next hour unpacking what Kerrin thought was leadership but was actually emotional policing. The threats to her boss. The public examples in team meetings. The performative disappointment designed to create shame.

Her team wasn't giving her the Gen Z Stare because they were disrespectful. They were protecting themselves from emotional manipulation.

"This is hard to hear," Kerrin said finally. "But I think you're right. I've been trying to manage through fear, haven't I?"

That moment of recognition changed everything. We scheduled a follow-up session for today.

When Kerrin walked into my office this morning, she looked different. Less defensive. More curious.

"I've been thinking about our conversation all week," she said. "And I tried something different with my team."

She had spent the last five days observing her own behavior. Really observing it. She caught herself mid-threat during a team meeting. She noticed how her voice changed when she was frustrated. She watched her team's faces shut down in real-time.

"I realized I was performing my authority instead of just being authoritative," she said. "And they were responding to the performance, not the leadership."

We developed what I call the TRUST framework—not because I forced an acronym, but because rebuilding trust was exactly what Kerrin needed to do.

The TRUST Framework

T: Tone Down the Theater

Kerrin’s first step was recognizing when she was performing disappointment instead of communicating it. Over the past five days, she'd been catching herself in the act and practicing a conversational tone, focusing on the work rather than the person's character.

Old way: "This is unacceptable. I'm disappointed in your lack of attention to detail." New way: "I noticed a few errors in the report. Let's talk about what happened and how we can prevent this next time."

R: Remove the Audience

Kerrin had been using public feedback as a control mechanism. She committed to moving all critical conversations to private settings, removing the performative element entirely.

U: Understand Before Being Understood

Instead of leading with judgment, Kerrin started with curiosity. "Help me understand what happened with this project" became her new opening line.

S: Stop the Escalation Threats

Kerrin committed to removing threats about involving her boss or "reassessing roles" from her feedback conversations. If performance issues were serious enough to involve leadership, she would do it—but not as a threat.

T: Time to Process

Perhaps most importantly, Kerrin started giving her team space to respond. Instead of demanding immediate reactions, she'd say, "Think about what we discussed and let's reconnect tomorrow."

The early results were encouraging. Just yesterday, Jenna actually asked a clarifying question during feedback instead of shutting down. The Gen Z Stare was already beginning to fade as the emotional threat level decreased.

"I realized," Kerrin told me today, "that the stare was never about them. It was about me. They weren't being disrespectful—they were being smart. They were protecting themselves from someone who was using emotions as weapons."