Family leaders

Listen to Harry Martin, a Family Business Advisor and Family Office Expert explain why a sustainable business family is one that accepts to recognize one of them as their leader (or leaders per area). When focusing on appointing leaders in a family business, it is important to consider who the strongest members in the business are, regardless of age or status.

A good family is one who, number one, will accept a leader. Some families are so disjointed and dysfunctional and angry at each other that nobody could be the leader, ok? So that if you have a family that is healthy enough to accept a leader, the next question is, who is the leader? Is it the mother or the father? Or the children are becoming the leaders in certain areas, and they step forward and if the parents let them do it, then the advisor consultant moves to the children, very gingerly says, “You know, this is sensitive, because you are taking a leadership role. We have got to be sensitive of your parents.” And then you go back to the parents and say, “Are you comfortable with this? Look who is taking the lead here.” You are going back and forth. You are shifting the leadership either from the husband to the wife, or from the parents to the child. You have to have a critical mass on your side. I always go in the family to the sources of strength. Now, some of my colleagues are psychologists, and they often spend a lot of time on the family member who is most dysfunctional, who is most troubled, who has the most emotional issues, who feels left out. I do not do that. I go to the strongest family members, because they are the core we need to build around to keep the family and the company together. So I go to the various sources of strength in the family among the seniors and among the younger people, and try and get them behind this effort, and then try and get them communicating with each other.