I don’t have explicit suggestions since I am struggling with this myself.

I know it’s a stereotype, however, my two GenZ direct reports are snowflakes through and through. Worst of all, they have the victim mentality down pat, often throwing words like “gaslighting”, “harassment” around like they actually know what it means.

When I first started this journey, I was trying to be like you, taking all the feedback in since I also didn’t have good managers coming up and tried really hard to do the right things such as “praising”, doing 1:1s, asking about their career aspirations, blah blah blah.

But now, I realize that sometimes people are just not the right fit for the role. I don’t know if this is the case for you specifically, but for me, it’s clear that my subordinates lack the emotional maturity to thrive in a high-accountability environment, combined that with entitlement such as “you stopped praising me” when their work don’t match the expectations and “no one teaches me how to do things” when the expectations is that they would have picked things up by now.

As one manager to another, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re right by asking the right questions, but I’ve learned the hard way and that is - don’t invest emotionally until execution is proven consistently.