by Shawna Wells, founder of 7Gen Legacy Group
As the largest generation in the workforce, millennials have a distinct opportunity (and responsibility) to connect and bridge the last generation to the coming generation. A 2025 report from Guidant Financial reveals a significant shift: Millennial small business ownership has grown by 25% this year — now representing 21% of all small business owners.
And it’s not just a shift of ownership — but a shift in things that matter to them.
Millennials are building the future differently
Almost 90% of Millennials seek work that feels meaningful beyond the paycheck. With access to all sorts of wealth, power, and choice, it’s no surprise that many are choosing mid-life pivots, and trading default paths for intentional ones. More and more, they’re moving away from what’s expected and toward building lives they’ve consciously designed for themselves.
Amid escalating climate disasters, the rise of AI, and the rapid reshaping of work, Millennials are rethinking leadership. Raised through the Great Recession and a global pandemic, they’re now leading, parenting, and building in the shadow of inherited systemic challenges. And through it all, they’re asking one key question: How do I design a life that feels aligned, sustainable, and supports the world I want to live in?
I’m and I have seen this generational leadership shift firsthand. Through my work with visionary entrepreneurs, CEOs, and changemakers, I’ve witnessed how more Millennial leaders are stepping away from performative productivity in favor of legacy leadership–an emerging approach to building systems, organizations, and lives that are sustainable, impactful, and deeply rooted in generational health.
This piece explores how today’s Millennial leaders are choosing long-term impact over short-term influence, and why legacy-minded leadership is becoming a defining strategy, bringing much-needed meaning to a generation rooted in life alignment.
The evolving shape of leadership
Millennials are throwing out the old playbook. Where previous generations may have upheld hierarchy and rigid systems, today’s leaders are focused on impact, defining life by their own design, moving away from default, and gaining clarity on what truly matters. They’re becoming more practical and committed to a life beyond work.
As a result, they’re building lives they actually want to live, and choosing environments that prioritize mental health, and promote work-life equilibrium.
Even Forbes has noted that leadership is no longer one-size-fits-all, especially among Millennials. Their leadership style is characterised by adaptability, strong emotional intelligence, and a deep commitment to intention.
At 7Gen, we know the old definitions of success were never designed with our wholeness in mind. They rewarded titles and accolades—but often at the cost of our connection to ourselves.
We’re helping our clients lead a quiet evolution. Together, we’re moving beyond performative leadership and designing systems that center generational health, so leaders can build lives, organizations, and legacies that actually sustain them.
What legacy-minded leadership looks like in practice
So, what is legacy-minded leadership?
It centers around building life by our own design that will impact future generations and honor personal wellness, community care, and decisions that build generational health.
Legacy leadership lives at the intersection of the evolution of the six realms of a life well lived:
- Financial Freedom: Creating generational wealth that sustains the life you want to live and leave behind for others.
- Well-being: Cultivating physical, emotions, and spiritual health so you can lead from a place of strength.
- Relationships & Community: Strengthening the bonds that support you and nurture thriving communities.
- Play: Encouraging joy and creativity in your daily life.
- Work: Aligning your work with your values, making bold choices that create lasting change while building wealth and health.
- Service: Giving your time, talent, and treasure without any expectations, creating an impact that goes beyond material rewards.
In practice, this means redefining success beyond revenue or reach to include how leaders structure their days, teams, personal rhythms, and boundaries. One of my clients, a visionary founder, redesigned his entire organizational structure around a legacy statement. What emerged was a more aligned organization that allowed each person to live into the impact the organization was making through a set of very clear, constructed goals and ways that nourished both people and purpose.
This is the work of 7Gen: helping leaders shift from output to outcome, from default to design. I encourage connecting your current role to your larger impact. It’s a move from “reacting to creating” through aligned leadership teams, intentional hiring, and sustainable frameworks built for generational health.
Why generational decision-making matters more than ever
We’re in the middle of a generational turning point. As Gen Z steps in and Boomers step back, Millennials are bridging worlds—leading multigenerational teams, managing cross-cultural expectations, and redefining what they want leadership to look like.
This dynamic is happening against a backdrop of global shift. Climate breakdown, education inequity, and economic instability are all, in many ways, the consequences of short-sighted decision-making. Millennials, having inherited the fallout, are responding with harder questions and making bolder choices.
Legacy is transferred through systems. Through how we run meetings. Through the people we spend time with. Through our candid conversations. Through the way we talk to children. Through the way we send our text messages. Through what we share on our social media. Through the small day-to-day decisions we make.
Leadership has evolved from being overly reliant on charisma or credentials to understanding the personal legacy we make. It requires investing in leadership development that foregrounds legacy, sustainability, and systems change.
As we move through leadership, it’s our responsibility to start to see around corners that get further and further into the distance. We must ask ourselves: what is the impact of our decision today to seven generations (or 150 years) from now? That gives us clarity on what we need to do.
The leaders of today must think in generations, not quarters
The strongest strategy is the one that considers the next seven generations. It’s intentional, methodical, and requires us to take a pause.
We tend to make big promises to the world. But what the world really needs is for us to slow down long enough to ask ourselves: What’s the impact of what we’re doing—in a few months? A few years? Two generations from now?
We need to name the most important truths. We need to come together to face them. And we need to learn how to decide, collectively, what matters and what doesn’t.
That’s what impactful leaders are doing right now.
They’re prioritising intentionally how they spend their time, talent, and energy.
So ask yourself: Are you using a legacy mindset as a strategy for your leadership? For how you build pathways inside your organisation? For how you manage and make decisions?
Because the futures of our organisations need to be cultivated. And that work starts now, with us.
Ready to lead with legacy in mind?
If you’re a Millennial leader — or someone walking alongside one as a menor or manager — this is your invitation to reflect. To lead like an intentional ancestor, and begin where you are.
Start with finding clarity. Take the Organisational Legacy Quiz to explore how your current systems align with your long-term vision.
Shawna Wells is a former teacher and principal turned CEO of two impactful businesses: 7Gen Legacy Group and B is for Black Brilliance. She is also a children’s author and “legacy-architect” who has worked with hundreds of executive leaders nationwide helping Americans, particularly in Black communities, build generational wealth. Wells serves on multiple boards including Teach for America Las Vegas.