Background: German employers face the multidimensional problem of leadership shortage. Masses of former leaders retiring coupled with the marginalization of women and unwillingness of the younger generations Y/Z (both wo/men) to progress into leadership make it increasingly difficult to safeguard the future of leadership within organizations. It is evident that current leadership conditions do not seem to speak to the future leaders anymore. Heightened focus on work-life balance but simultaneously on career progression and economic benefit does not appear to align with the working ethic that employers are used to. Yet nowadays employees may not need to be ideal to employers but vice versa. To survive, talents need to be attracted, retained and lured into leadership positions. For this, leadership conditions need to be reevaluated. 

Purpose: As wo/men of Gen Y/Z are the bearer of hope to tackle the (upcoming) leadership shortage in Germany, we shed light on their preferences for leadership conditions. This is achieved by investigating selected attributes of Joint Leadership which is a particular type of leadership sharing. The attributes under investigation are closely related to level of compensation, contracted working hours, speed of career progression, and leadership responsibilities. Theoretically, this study is at the forefront of investigating Joint Leadership empirically and quantitatively while also studying gender and generation in combination. Practically, this study aims to aid practitioners to protrude during the “war for talent” (Burola, 2023) by becoming more attractive by reevaluating their leadership conditions.

RQ: How do demographics influence the preferences for leadership conditions?

Method/ology: This study is of positivistic and deductive nature and presents a quantitative explanatory approach to preference research in the form of a laboratory choice-based conjoint experiment. Primary data of 177 participants is collected and analyzed based on gender and generation (in interaction) for Joint Leadership attributes. 

Conclusion: We evidence how gender and generation (in interaction) influence preferred leadership conditions. This provides a basis for explanation and discussion on e.g., reversed gender effects, potential trade-offs, and impacts of life-stages as opposed to generation.