\n
<\/p>\n
Gen Z founders may not have spent as much time in the workplace when they started their companies as some older founders. But in some ways, that gives them unique insight that can be valuable for leaders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For Katie Diasti and Anam Lakhani, a disconnect from the work they were doing as interns has helped to shape their leadership style. Specifically, those experiences inspired them to ensure that all of their team members feel a sense of both ownership and impact for the work they\u2019re doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember interning and creating a whole deck and making a whole presentation, but never being allowed to be in the room that the presentation was in,\u201d recalled Diasti, founder and CEO of Viv Period Care<\/a>, speaking at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. \u201cNow, as we have team members creating something, I want them to see the holistic approach\u2014I want them to see every metric of the business and the goal, because that actually motivates them to feel that ownership and that trust.\u201d<\/p>\n Lakhani, meanwhile, was inspired to co-found the Alinea Invest<\/a> app during college to make investing more accessible to her generation\u2014and likewise, she drew on her experience interning in investment banking on Wall Street to ensure her company\u2019s work felt both meaningful and impactful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOne thing I knew when starting my company is I wanted every day to feel like you were moving the company forward, that you were having an impact on the user experience, that you were driving something forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Being a disruptive founder\u2014and especially at a young age\u2014requires a balancing act of sorts.<\/p>\n On the one hand, young founders don\u2019t have the \u201cbaggage\u201d of longheld expectations about how things are done. But they must also have good mentors, and a sense of humility to navigate managing people who are several decades older, said Liam Ryan, CEO of Streetleaf<\/a>, which designs, installs, and maintains solar streetlights throughout the U.S.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nBalancing what they know\u2014and don\u2019t know<\/h2>\n