Gen Z in UPSC : What happens to civil services values?

1. Each generation carries its own communication style, value system, and expectations from institutions. A recent study comparing Millennials and Gen Z found that while Millennials communicate cautiously (verifying information and maintaining politeness), Gen Z prefers informal, fast, and emotionally honest communication, often expressed through sarcasm, abbreviations, and emojis. Verification may sometimes take a back seat to authenticity.

The study also shows that both generations express concerns such as inequality, discrimination, and social pressure, but their styles differ, creating what scholars call an “Angry Community.” This reflects not only digital behaviour but deeper social stress.

2. The core values of the Civil Services remain the same, but society and its challenges are changing rapidly. With a new generation possessing unique characteristics taking charge, the obvious question arises: Do the values of the older generations remain the same for them, and are they sufficient to tackle contemporary challenges?

Where do core values stand?

From an ethics perspective, this generational shift raises important questions:

Can core values like trust, humility, respect, and compassion remain consistent across home and office?

Will Gen Z officers carry traditional values taught by parents, or redefine them through digital culture?

In governance, values cannot be compartmentalised. An officer’s communication pattern (whether empathetic or abrupt, reflective or impulsive) shapes citizen trust and administrative legitimacy. Since most senior officers remain Millennials, Gen Z will have to balance their digital-first instincts with workplace expectations of patience, deliberation, and institutional respect.

Leadership in a Digital World

Gen Z bureaucracy is comfortable with virtual platforms and rapid communication. But speed must be matched with ethical leadership. The world still looks for the moral clarity once embodied by Mahatma Gandhi, his principles of non-violence, truth, self-restraint, and responsibility. The Chauri Chaura incident showed that youth energy needs direction; without ethical leadership, anger can drift into aggression.

If this gap is not addressed, young officers risk becoming over-reliant on AI tools, ignoring human judgment, or maintaining a sense of superiority that damages teamwork.

Using Gen Z strengths for Good Governance

Gen Z brings valuable qualities like speed, creativity, and commitment. These should be channelled to drive innovation, not impatience. Ethics is inherent to good governance. It should not be treated as a compliance tick-box or a theory which is not supposed to be practiced.

What becomes essential is the framework of principlism. This framework includes:

1. Respect for autonomy which means listening to diverse voices especially  the “last person” in society.

2. Beneficence which involves using creativity for public good.

3. Non-maleficence which means avoiding harm through careless communication or digital haste.

4. Justice, a very essential component that ensures fairness in decisions.

How can Gen Z civil servants redefine governance, even when working along with Gen X and Millennials? 

Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z must moderate ego, aggression and all other attitudinal aspects which may not be productive for governance and a healthy work culture. They must function from a balanced adult state which means to be rational, empathetic, and ethical. Governance works only when each generation presumes good intent in the other, accepts their strengths, and collaborates.

Gen Z civil servants can redefine governance. What they must do is to integrate their digital fluency with India’s enduring ethical ideals. We often think that the challenge is choosing between tradition and modernity. That is not always the case. The real challenge is combining value-based leadership with innovative governance. The success of the civil services is not to adapt to a new generation. In fact what counts is how it evolves into a more responsive, ethical, and people-centric institution, in today’s time under Gen Z, the new civil servants.

Post Read Question for UPSC CSE Ethics paper:

With a rising number of Gen Z entrants in the civil services, the challenge lies in balancing digital-age behaviour with traditional ethical values. Discuss how generational differences in communication and value systems can impact ethical governance. Suggest measures to ensure value-based public service in a multi-generational bureaucracy.

(The writer is the author of ‘Being Good’, ‘Aaiye, Insaan Banaen’, ‘Kyon’ and ‘Ethikos: Stories Searching Happiness’. He teaches courses on and offers training in ethics, values and behaviour. He has been the expert/consultant to UPSC, SAARC countries, Civil services Academy, National Centre for Good Governance, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Competition Commission of India (CCI), etc. He has PhD in two disciplines and has been a Doctoral Fellow in Gandhian Studies from ICSSR. His second PhD is from IIT Delhi on Ethical Decision Making among Indian Bureaucrats. He writes for the UPSC Ethics Simplified (concepts and caselets) fortnightly.)

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