I was in line in the library recently and watched a young library assistant think through a dilemma and make a decision. An elderly patron at the checkout desk needed extra help. The interaction was taking forever. Behind her, those of us in line were growing restless.  The assistant could have rushed the old woman and embarrassed her.  She could have ignored the line and left us all waiting. She did neither.

While continuing to help the patron in front of her, she quietly asked the person next to her to find someone who could cover the checkout line. That allowed her to give the elderly woman the attention she needed while also making sure the people behind her were served.

This wasn’t judgment in the executive-suite sense. This was everyday workplace judgment: reading the room, seeing competing needs, protecting the dignity of one person, respecting the time of others, and using available resources to solve the problem.

It was a small moment, but it stayed with me because she used good judgment in the moment, and that’s something people say Gen Z can’t do.

We say we want clear thinking and action from early-career employees, but we don’t do a good job explaining how to develop good judgment.

We tell young employees to be reliable, communicate clearly, solve problems, collaborate, adapt and build trust. Those are all valid expectations, and the skill that turns many of those behaviors into real value is judgment.

Judgment is what helps an employee decide what matters most. It helps them know when to escalate and when to keep working. It helps them understand who needs to know something, how much detail to provide, and whether the issue is urgent. It helps them move from “I completed the task” to “I understand the work and know how to help solve the problem.”

This skill can go by many names. NACE’s career readiness framework calls it critical thinking and defines it as the ability to identify and respond to needs based on situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 calls it analytical thinking and makes a similar point from a broader labor-market perspective. Analytical thinking remains the top core skill employers identified as essential in the report.

Employers are looking for people who can do more than follow directions. They are asking employees to operate with awareness, understand context, and move independently.  In other words, learning to think about the work beyond the immediate assignment.

A young employee learning to exercise good business judgment might engage with their boss this way:

• “I can finish this today, but it will delay the client update. Which matters more?”
• “I see two possible fixes. One is faster but temporary. One takes longer but prevents the issue from recurring. Can we discuss which route to take?”
• “I think this should be escalated because the deadline, budget, or customer relationship may be affected. Do you agree?”

A boss might prompt a young employee to ask these types of questions if they are interested in growing their young employee’s professional maturity.

Research shows that people do not become excellent simply by repeating an activity for a long time. Improvement requires deliberate practice, which is defined as focused effort against specific goals, useful feedback, correction, and another attempt.

Likewise, a young employee does not automatically build judgment because they work at a company for two years. They build judgment when someone gives them structured opportunities to think, decide, recommend, receive feedback, and try again. Time in a job helps, but experience without feedback can simply reinforce bad habits.

Managers do not always create the conditions in which judgment can develop. They either keep decisions too high up, which prevents young employees from practicing, or they throw people into ambiguous situations without enough coaching, then become frustrated when the outcome is uneven.

Coaching can be as simple as asking things like:

• “What do you think matters most here?”
• “What are the options?”
• “Who else needs to know?”
• “What would change your mind?”

I had a boss when I was starting out who used to say, “give me the issue, the context, the tradeoff, and your recommendation.”

Those questions teach employees how to think about the work, not just how to complete the work.

Managers can also make the invisible visible. Many leaders make judgment calls quickly because they have years of pattern recognition. A junior employee often sees only the final decision, not the reasoning behind it.

So explain the reasoning. Say:

• “I am prioritizing this because the customer impact is higher.”
• “I am not escalating this yet because we still have a path to solve it.”
• “I am copying finance because this changes the cost assumption.”

Early-career employees also have work to do.

They should not wait for someone to formally teach them. They can begin practicing business judgment in ordinary work moments. They can start to identify the issue, the options, the risk, in every situation before they offer a solution or recommendation.

Showing they think holistically and can appropriately weigh optons is how early-career employees start to become trusted. Trust does not come only from being likable, or hardworking.

Judgement is a hinge skill.  It enables reliable execution, clear communication, prioritization, problem-solving, collaboration, adaptability, and trust building. Judgment is also one of the earliest forms of leadership.

The young library employee did not hold a formal leadership role. But in that moment, her clear thinking showed she has the raw material of leadership.

• She saw the whole situation.
• She respected the people involved.
• She solved the problem without creating a new one.

And if we want better leaders later, we should start building that skill much earlier.

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Resources

Ericsson, K. A., & Pool, R. (2016). Peak: Secrets from the new science of expertise. Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406.

Langer, A. (2025). Top skills employers are looking for in 2025: Problem-solving, teamwork, and communication. National Institutes of Health, Office of Intramural Training & Education.

Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z., & Oswald, F. L. (2014). Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1608–1618.

National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2024). Job Outlook 2025.

National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2025). Career readiness defined.

World Economic Forum. (2025). The Future of Jobs Report 2025.