Management Development
Entrepreneurs are often natural-born leaders. That doesn’t mean their offspring will be. Nurturing effective leadership practices in family businesses can be somewhat of a challenge – but a challenge that can be overcome. Through training, planning and mentoring, family business leaders can develop both managers and management strategies that really work for the business and its future.
In this section, we discuss the importance of developing and surrounding yourself with a team of great leaders who can drive strategic growth for your family business.
Optimism and pessimism are strong, stable traits that reflect our coping strategies. We live in an uncertain world. To cope with uncertainty, most people basically assume that things will either turn out well (the optimists) or turn out badly (the pessimists).
Many business founders dream of the day that the next generation will join them in the
business. While entry of the next generation can be a very exciting time, it also presents
challenges. One of the many decisions the family must make at this point is how to treat these
young people. Should they be treated just like everyone else, or given special consideration as
family members and current or future owners?
Get the facts straight from the myths here.
Building a successful family business isn’t as easy as rounding up all your relatives and asking everyone to pitch in. Even though it’s based on family, your venture is still a business – and should be treated like a business.
It comes as no surprise that family businesses look and act much different in their first generation than they do in successive generations. This is attributed to a variety of factors and priorities, including familial ties, the perception of fairness and the survival of the business itself.
Just as it takes “a village” to rear a child, it takes more than just a family, and certainly more than just a single leader, to run a family business.
The phase of transition from one generation to the next is often a period of time steeped in both pride and anxiety – for both the senior and junior generations.
Business founders must do a great bit of soul searching and not necessarily turn to birth order to determine who is next in line.