A Gen X leader told me recently, “I’m having trouble working with a Gen Z employee. Shie is so inflexible in her approach.” It is an easy story to buy: one generation cast as rigid, the other as reasonable. Yet, when you listen across levels and age groups, a different pattern emerges—rigidity is one type of response to feeling threatened, not a uniquely Gen Z trait.​

When values, behavior, or identity feel on the line, leaders dig in just as hard as early-career employees. So, what do we do when rigidity shows up for novice or senior employees?  Research on intergenerational conflict, psychological flexibility, and Motivational Interviewing gives us a better set of tools.​

The Real Fault Lines: Values, Behavior, Identity

Qualitative research on intergenerational tensions at work finds that most conflicts fall into three buckets.​

1. Values-based tensions
   When leaders talk about Gen Z, these sound like: “They don’t share my work ethic,” “They don’t respect boundaries,” or “They care more about flexibility than loyalty.” When someone says these things, they are protecting what they see as non‑negotiable principles of security, autonomy, fairness, contribution.​
2. Behavior-based tensions
   You might hear leaders say: “They communicate differently,” “They won’t pick up the phone,” or “They’re glued to Slack and won’t walk down the hall.” The visible behaviors become proxies for respect or professionalism, even though they often reflect just different norms, not different intentions.​
3. Identity-based tensions
   This is the deepest layer: “What does your behavior say about me as a leader?” or “Do they see me as competent and worthy of being here?” For example, if a Gen Z employee suggested changes to language in a deck to make it more inclusive, the leader might be thinking “I have been doing my job for 20 years, are you suggesting I am biased?” When identity feels under threat, people are much more likely to become defensive, withdraw, or go to all‑or‑nothing positions.​

Research shows that people then reach for three kinds of strategies to manage these tensions:

• achievement‑oriented (double down on shared goals),
• image‑oriented (manage how we are seen), or
• ego‑oriented (protect self at all costs).

Ego‑oriented strategies—stonewalling, sarcasm, digging in—are the ones that keep conflict stuck and make everyone look “inflexible.”​

This framework is useful because it moves us away from “Gen X vs. Gen Z” and toward understanding that “values, behavior, and identity are colliding.

 

Psychological Flexibility: The Opposite of Digging In

One way to understand rigidity is as the absence of psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is the capacity to stay present, notice thoughts and feelings, and still choose behaviors aligned with your values in the moment.

Studies link higher psychological flexibility to better mental health, adaptability, and work outcomes. Employees who are more flexible cope better with change and show more effective functioning at work, while rigidity is associated with distress and difficulty adjusting. activities that build psychological flexibility through practices like defusing rigid thoughts and taking small comfortable actions have been shown to improve wellbeing and functioning in workplace settings.​

The key insight here is opinion flexibility is not a personality trait you either have or don’t. It is a skill set that can be strengthened over time, just like any other core competency.​

 

Motivational Interviewing: A Shared Toolkit for Softening Rigid Positions

If psychological flexibility explains what we are aiming for, Motivational Interviewing (MI) offers a practical “how.”

Originally developed in health and addiction contexts, MI is a collaborative, approach to conversation that helps people move from defending the status quo to articulating their own reasons for change.​

Several principles are especially relevant in generational tensions:

Persuading vs. Evoking
When leaders—or employees—argue hard for change, the other person tends to argue just as hard against it, becoming more entrenched in their original position. MI flips this pattern by focusing on evoking the other person’s willingness to be flexible through open questions and reflective listening.​ Some sample questions:

“What outcomes matter most to you here, and what would make experimenting with a different approach feel safer?”

“On a scale of 1–10, how open are you to trying a slightly different approach? What would move you one point higher?”

When people voice their own reasons for change, their commitment to that change tends to increase.​

Highlighting Discrepancy, Not Attacking Character
MI helps people notice where behavior is out of sync with their values without labeling them as wrong or bad. That kind of discrepancy often opens a door to flexibility.​ Here are some ideas how to frame questions for this approach:

“You’ve said innovation is important to you; this decision keeps the status quo. Help me understand how to reconcile that?”

“You’ve said having impact matters to you. How do you see this stance affecting the impact you want to have?”

Rolling With Resistance
MI has a concept called rolling with resistance.  The idea is to treat resistance as information and a signal of perceived threat; don’t interpret it as defiance. The goal is to acknowledge the resistance and keep the conversation going. It might sound something like this:

“It seems like part of you is open to trying something new, and another part really wants to protect what’s working. Did I get that right?”

An MI approach can increase readiness for change in organizational settings and reduce defensiveness.​ The key for generational work is to teach these skills to everyone, executives, middle managers, and early‑career professionals so that no one group carries the burden of being the one expected to change.

From Ego Protection to Shared Outcomes

When values, behavior, and identity collide, most people default to ego‑oriented strategies such as defending, withdrawing, or doubling down. The aim instead is to focus on shared goals and intentionally manage how we show up across generations.​

Leaders can model this shift by:

• Naming the level of tension to depersonalize conflict.​ (“This feels like a values conversation, not just a deadline conversation”)
• Asking at least one MI‑style question before arguing for their own solution.
• Explicitly rewarding behaviors that reflect flexibility (reframing, taking another’s perspective, or revisiting a position in light of new information).

Teams can institutionalize this type of approach and turn these skills into  norms Activities  that build psychological flexibility can nudge cultures toward greater adaptability over time.​

Designing Intergenerational Contact that Reduces Rigidity

Beyond individual conversations, structure matters. Research on intergenerational contact at work shows that positive, meaningful interactions across age groups can improve belonging, engagement, and attitudes toward other generations.

Some studies find that these effects are especially strong for older workers, who often benefit from seeing their experience recognized and valued.​ When this works, it is easier for different generations at work to share knowledge and work together to achieve joint outcomes.

When these structures are in place- value, behavior, and identity tensions still surface- but the system gives people tools to stay in the conversation and work through them without hardening into “us vs. them.”

A Different Story to Tell

The prevailing story is that Gen Z is inflexible and older generations must figure out how to manage them. A more accurate and more hopeful story is that humans across generations become rigid when values, behavior, and identity feel threatened. What reduces rigidity is

up a different set of approaches for leaders and emerging professionals alike:

• How can each of us notice when we are sliding into ego protection?
• How might our generational narratives shift if we treated flexibility as a collective practice rather than a generational defect to be corrected?

Those are the attitudes and conversations that move organizations a shared commitment to success across generations.

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Research & Resources

The ideas in this article draw from several bodies of research:

On intergenerational workplace tensions:

• Lyons, S. T., & Kuron, L. K. (2014). Generational differences in the workplace: A review of the evidence and directions for future research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(S1), S139-S157.
• Urick, M. J., Hollensbe, E. C., Masterson, S. S., & Lyons, S. T. (2017). Understanding and managing intergenerational conflict: An examination of influences and strategies. Work, Aging and Retirement, 3(2), 166-185.

On psychological flexibility:

• Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 865-878.
• Bond, F. W., & Bunce, D. (2003). The role of acceptance and job control in mental health, job satisfaction, and work performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(6), 1057-1067.
• Flaxman, P. E., & Bond, F. W. (2010). Worksite stress management training: Moderated effects and clinical significance. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 15(4), 347-358.

On Motivational Interviewing in organizational contexts:

• Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2012). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
• Butterworth, S. W. (2008). Influencing patient adherence to treatment guidelines. Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy, 14(6 Suppl B), 21-24.

On intergenerational contact and collaboration:

• Burmeister, A., Wang, M., & Hirschi, A. (2020). Understanding the motivational benefits of knowledge transfer for older and younger workers in age-diverse coworker dyads. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(7), 748-759.
• Brumley, H., Cooper, C., & Hernandez, P. (2017). Fostering intergenerational collaboration in the workplace. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 15(4), 338-354.