Generational Wellness in Leadership

Conversations about wellbeing in organisations are usually framed around the individual: how a person rests, recovers, manages pressure, or structures their week.

Wellbeing in leadership, however, is also influenced by generational patterns: the norms we grew up with, the environments that shaped us and the expectations we absorbed about work, success, and our approach to resilience.

Each generation enters leadership with a different internal script. Not better or worse, just different. When multiple generations work together, these scripts interact, sometimes seamlessly and sometimes with friction.

Understanding these patterns helps leaders respond with clarity instead of judgement.

Older generations were often shaped by models of work built around endurance and loyalty, with levels of personal sacrifice deemed acceptable. Long hours were normal. Career stability was a marker of achievement. Rest was earned rather than integrated. Many leaders from these backgrounds carry a strong sense of responsibility and a belief that personal discomfort is part of professional progress.

Younger generations, by contrast, have come of age in a world shaped by rapid technological change, greater transparency, and more fluid career paths. Their norms often prioritise flexibility and wellbeing as a baseline. They question the idea that success must come at the cost of health or relationships.

Neither approach is inherently right or wrong. They are reflections of different eras. Of different ‘norms’.

Generational differences often become visible in conversations about workload and boundaries. A younger leader may question a schedule that an older leader sees as standard. An older leader may interpret this as a lack of resilience, while the younger leader may interpret the expectation as outdated.

When we move beyond the surface, a deeper pattern emerges: everyone is trying to protect what they value.

• For some, that value is stability.
• For others, it is flexibility.
• For others, it can be identity or health.

Wellness is not a universal concept; it is shaped by the environment we learned to navigate. The environment we grew to normalise.

When leaders articulate the context behind their expectations, the gaps narrow. When younger colleagues explain how they structure their energy, understanding increases.

The tension often comes not from the differences themselves but from the absence of this shared understanding, and therefore empathy.

One of the most consistent findings in leadership research is that wellbeing improves when people feel they have agency. Generational understanding supports this by giving each person the space to express how they work best without assuming that others should mirror them.

To lead effectively across generations, leaders benefit from reframing wellness as a system influenced by a number of factors, including:

• upbringing
• cultural norms
• societal expectations
• lived experience
• physiological differences
• personal values

This allows wellbeing to become a conversation rather than a directive.

Instead of “this is how to work,” the dialogue becomes to: “what supports you to work well?”

The Calibration Model supports this by giving leaders a shared language and Money-Mission, Mental-Physical, Work-Life balance and integration, so that differences can be explored with curiosity rather than judgement.

Why It Matters

Generational wellness shapes how teams operate. It influences communication, expectations and engagement. Leaders who understand these patterns can create environments where people feel seen rather than evaluated.

When individuals feel seen, performance rises, not through pressure, but through alignment to a motivation or need.

The most effective leaders are not those who hold one definition of resilience. They are the ones who recognise that resilience evolves, and that each generation brings something valuable to the collective understanding of what it means to thrive.

Sarah Brennand – Author of Balancing Act – Mastering Work, Wealth and Wellbeing.

Executive Coach, Speaker and Trainer.