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European Union leaders are searching for ways to ease soaring energy prices, but President Donald Trump’s war against Iran has left them with few affordable options.

There’s a new word for those who are apprehensive or outright uninterested in career advancement. 

Included in a new book of 100 Future Words, “ladderdodging” is defined as “declining or choosing not to seek out a promotion or high-level role in order to avoid the added pressure, risk, and loneliness that often comes with management positions.” And it coincides with a real trend unfolding in the workplace.

Declining a promotion was once almost unheard of, but recent studies suggest it’s now become the norm—especially among younger workers.

A July survey by emotional insight platform Hint App found that 58% of workers would reject a promotion if it required them to be available after hours. Similarly, a 2024 survey by recruitment firm Robert Walters found that 57% of Gen Z professionals have no interest in middle management, and Deloitte’s two most recent annual “Gen Z and Millennial” surveys both found that only 6% see leadership as a primary career goal.

“Ladderdodging is essentially people at work looking at the offer of a promotion and seeing the additional stress and additional responsibilities that come with it, and saying, ‘You know what? I’m good,’” explains Rohit Bhargava, coauthor of Future Words: A Non-Obvious Glossary of Terms That Don’t Exist (but Soon Will) and founder of the leadership training firm The Non-Obvious Company. 

Managing “not just work” but also “all of the human dynamics” of the people working for them “is not something that everyone’s ready to do,” he explains.

Bhargava says he and coauthor Henry Coutinho-Mason came up with each of the 100 words based on emerging research and anecdotal evidence from working with business leaders. The goal of the book, according to Bhargava, is to spark conversation while offering new language to describe existing or emerging trends.

Putting a label on the feeling that some workers get when offered a promotion that seems daunting or undesirable, however, could also shape their behaviors, Bhargava says.

“People might look at that and use it as permission, like, ‘I’m on trend—other people are doing this, too,’” he adds. “The smart organizations will be the ones who look at a word like this as an indication of a trend, and ask the next question: ‘Why are they dodging the promotion?’”

Why are workers ladderdodging?

The reasons for rejecting a promotion are many, from the added emotional burden of managing interpersonal conflicts to the practical challenges of managing a more demanding work schedule. 

But over the years, researchers have found deeper psychological reasons for rejecting advancement. And it will take a lot more than a bump in pay to help them get over those mental roadblocks.

According to research conducted by Sue Ashford, a professor of management and organization at the University of Michigan, there are three primary perceived risks that prevent workers from signing up for leadership opportunities: instrumental risk, image risk, and interpersonal risk.

Instrumental risk

Ashford explains that those who step into a leadership role immediately become responsible for the success—or failure—of the group. 

“Instrumental risk is being worried about the team not performing,” Ashford explains. “If you step up and lead, and things go badly, you get blamed.”

Ashford says that before deciding whether to put themselves forward, most workers will consider their confidence in the group’s abilities, and whether they will be given the space to learn from failure without professional repercussions.

“The research on psychological safety would suggest the context makes a big difference,” she says. “In a culture where you have to prove yourself all the time, the risk is way higher than in a culture where you can try stuff. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s okay—you’ll get better.” 

Image risk

With 82% of managers receiving no formal leadership training, many are understandably apprehensive about moving from a job where they have proven their abilities to one that could highlight their shortcomings. 

Ashford notes that managers often think to themselves: “If I don’t really know exactly how to lead, I’m likely to do some things wrong and look stupid. We’re a little uncertain whether we can do it, and we’re really afraid we’re just going to sound corny or cheesy.”

Even with the proper training, she says leadership skills can take a long time to develop and, in the meantime, people need to get comfortable with the discomfort of faking it. 

Interpersonal risk

Research has found that workplace friendships are getting harder to develop and maintain, especially as we get older. Going from colleague to superior can risk those relationships.

“If I step up and lead, and let’s say somebody else wanted to lead as well, we’re going to have interpersonal strife,” Ashford says. “Or if I step up and lead, I will lose all my friends—all the people that I typically hang out with, the network that I’ve developed—because I will be different.”

The allure of greater authority, prestige, and compensation may have been enough to overcome those risks in the past. But social connections are coming at a greater premium in the digital age. 

“We’re really hungry for social relationships right now, and I think people are much more aware of the effects of status on social dynamics in the workplace than they used to be,” says Tessa West, an author and professor of psychology at New York University. 

“People are not in third spaces as much, so they’re not meeting people organically. Adult social relationships feel really fragile right now, so if we’ve made good ones, stepping into a power role could just completely shatter all of those,” she adds.

Mental Health Preservation

Just as adults are becoming more aware of the fragility of their social bonds, so too are they becoming more aware of the fragility of their mental health. 

“There is a very strong narrative that the pay and resources are often not worth the sacrifices that you make to climb up at work,” West says. “We have much more knowledge about what stress does to us, what relationship sacrifices do—it’s just in the zeitgeist.”

She explains that most workers have seen their own managers struggling to keep up with the heightened demands that come with their position and have determined that the added stress is not worth the added pay.  

Certainty Bias

Stepping into a new role often requires stepping out of our comfort zone, and those who have found a position that suits their interests, skills, and lifestyle are less willing to make that leap.

“Living in this crazy, uncertain world, if we get certainty from our current job—we figured out how to do it, we know exactly what it takes to accomplish it, what will happen if we don’t—why would you give up that certainty?” West says. “The one thing that [young people] are certain of is that everyone they know in management is totally miserable.”

Norm Erosion

Further fueling the ladderdodging trend is a general feeling that managerial authority has been eroded in recent years due to flattening workplace structures, technological advancement, and a crisis of workplace trust. 

If managers of previous generations took a “my way or the highway” approach, today’s leaders are more restricted to more of a “please consider my way” stance, West argues.

“There’s a real norm erosion in the workplace right now, having to do with accountability and engagement, and we’re seeing that senior decision-makers are creatively disengaged from holding people accountable when bad things happen,” she says. “Nobody wants to crack down on those nasty employees, because they know it’s just going to be costly and annoying.”

West explains that in a world where the most expedient way to crack down on misbehavior is a lengthy performance improvement plan that does little to solve immediate workplace challenges, managers are feeling helpless and disengaging from the job.

For all of these reasons and more, workers are finding less of a reason to turn away from a job they know, the social bonds they’ve developed, the work-life balance they’ve achieved, and the self-image they’ve created to try their hand at leadership. 

As a result, many are declining promotions—so much so, that it’s inspired new terminology.

If you’ve been told you lack “executive presence” when you’re delivering a presentation, you know that something about how you’re coming across needs to change. What’s less clear is what, specifically, to work on. 

A leader I coached, whom I’ll call Michael, had been told he needed stronger executive presence. He communicated effectively with his team but was less effective with senior executives.

Executive presence has become an umbrella term for effective communication, but what does it mean when you’re told you lack executive presence? Being able to communicate effectively and hold a room’s attention relies on several factors.

As Michael and I did dry runs for upcoming meetings, it became clear the problem wasn’t how he delivered his presentation. There were other gaps such as the information he selected, how he sequenced and organized the content, and how he responded to questions and pushback.

In my executive coaching work and more than a decade of teaching leadership communication at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, I’ve worked with professionals across industries and levels. I’ve identified three key areas to work on to strengthen your executive presence. 

1. Assessing your audience’s needs 

The first place where leaders often fall down is understanding what information their audience needs. 

I coached one VP who was preparing a strategic plan for the C-suite. His draft was essentially a list of initiatives. He was missing the strategic reasoning behind the initiatives: why those priorities, what enterprise problems they addressed, what impact or tradeoffs they involved. 

His audience wanted to understand the implications for the organization for each initiative, and the VP wasn’t helping. No matter how well he delivered his message, he was going to lose his audience because he wasn’t meeting their needs. 

To address this, understand what your audience cares about. What are they responsible for achieving? What are they measured on? What decisions, risks, or tradeoffs do they need to consider? Tailor your message to their level, their needs, their challenges, and their priorities. 

2. Structuring your message

You could have the right judgment about what to include, but fail to structure your message in a way that advances a decision or facilitates alignment.

In Michael’s case, he led with the details rather than the takeaway, both overall and on individual slides. That forced leaders to infer the implication, which his manager said made him come across as less strategic.

When you’re presenting, lead with the main takeaway, recommendation or ask, with supporting evidence in the body. The goal is to build a logical path from analysis to action or decision.

3. Preparing for Q&A

You could have the right content and the right framing in your presentation, but fumble the aftermath.

One senior leader I advised struggled when the board started asking questions. She looked and sounded as if she’d been caught off guard, and she fought to stay composed. 

Before presenting, put yourself in the shoes of your audience once again. Anticipate their questions and objections. Prepare crisp, concise responses. Then rehearse in front of a colleague. Watch their facial expressions and body language to detect confusion or disagreement. Ask them to interrupt and ask questions or objections so you can practice responding with vocal and physical composure. 

Executive presence rests on extensive preparation

If you’ve been told you need more executive presence, or suspect it yourself, get more specific before deciding what to work on. Identify what’s driving that impression, and focus your efforts there. 

Delivery is the most visible part of executive presence, but it is rarely the whole problem. 

(RTTNews) - Swedish investment firm EQT AB (EQT.ST, EQBBF) Thursday announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire U.S. real estate investment manager Stockbridge for base consideration of $375 million in cash.

(RTTNews) - Swedish investment firm EQT AB (EQT.ST, EQBBF) Thursday announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire U.S. real estate investment manager Stockbridge for base consideration of $375 million in cash.

Rishi Sunak, former UK prime minister, urged so-called middle powers to become a “poisonous shrimp” to carve out strategic economic leverage in a more turbulent global environment.

Copper declined with other base metals after stronger-than-expected US consumer prices spurred bets on more aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve.

As Mukesh Ambani prepares for India’s biggest-ever initial public offering, the returns for the early global backers of Jio Platforms Ltd. are looking relatively modest, partly because of the rupee’s relentless multiyear slide.

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Jackson Chourio, Jake Bauers, Garrett Mitchell and Brewers manager Pat Murphy spoke postgame about Milwaukee’s Game 3 win over the Dodgers, taking a commanding 3-0 NLCS lead and moving one win away from the World Series.

Rishi Sunak, former UK prime minister, urged so-called middle powers to become a “poisonous shrimp” to carve out strategic economic leverage in a more turbulent global environment. (Source: Bloomberg)

Suzlon Group Co-Founder Girish Tanti examines what could drive the next phase of India’s wind expansion, from overcoming structural bottlenecks to competing with solar and storage. He also explains why Suzlon is betting on AI-powered blade factories. He speaks with Haslinda Amin from the sidelines of "Bloomberg New Economy Forum". (Source: Bloomberg)

Cotton futures closed the midweek session, with contracts up 15 to 21 points in the front months and down 2 to 35 in the deferreds. Crude oil was up $1.03 per barrel on the session, with the US dollar index $0.326 higher. The weekly Crop Progress report showed 82% of...

US-India Strategic Partnership Forum President & CEO Mukesh Aghi discusses US-India relations and the state of a possible trade deal. (Source: Bloomberg)

Key PointsNo company in history has generated as much revenue as Anthropic so early in its history.

Key PointsNo company in history has generated as much revenue as Anthropic so early in its history.