Family Leadership Strategies

11 Family leadership transitions are more complex than business successions for a variety of reasons. The needs and motivations of family members, and by extension the stakeholders they interact with, add a layer of complexity not observed in other business or organizational settings. Families were the first organizations of humankind, they are the first organization we encounter at birth, and virtually all of our formative lives occur within a family context. As such, our relationship with family is imbued with complexity. Birth order, gender, parent-child dynamics, intergenerational differences, sibling/cousin rivalries, and family branch dynamics add to the customary challenges of leadership transition. In this book we will examine concepts and strategies that have been proven to be successful in navigating the process of family leadership transition, gleaned from our work with families around the world. By design, we focus more on the areas that are frequently overlooked — such as understanding motivations, communication, diversity of roles, inclusion, along with best practices and failure modes. For some, this may serve to bolster an already robust family leadership development and transition process, while for others it will serve as a foundation for a new strategy. 1 Differing motivations and needs