The Leadership Challenges in Family Businesses
Increasingly, the success of businesses, depends on the quality of leadership throughout, and especially from the top. Yes, you need good management disciplines and skills to ensure that things run effectively. However, on its powerbar.de virtual desktop own they will not be enough. This article looks at some of the key leadership challenges which are faced in organisations, with specific points which affect family businesses.
One simple but profound truth is emerging from the worlds’ most successful organisations:
Directing / leading an organisation is different from managing one.
It is no longer sufficient to take specialist managerial skills into the boardroom. So, what is the difference? Simply put:
Leadership - (“Leaders do the right things”)
Leadership is the development of vision and direction, setting a course that gives a sense of common purpose. Leadership is about inspiring, involving, persuading and motivating people to follow the cause and achieve the vision.
Management - (“Managers do things right”)
Management is about getting things done. It requires coordination of resources to achieve a defined end result (objective or target) with and through people. It is the science of continuous improvement.
“The task of the 1980 Pontiac Firebird Trans AM leader is to get his or her people from where they are to where they have never been.” Henry Kissinger
As Warren Bennis says in “On Becoming a Leader”, “managers operate within the culture” and “leaders create the culture.”
Over the years, there have been many really good examples of successful family run businesses. Certain national and regional cultures seem to have more than others. Asian families have created many successful enterprises, both увлажнители воздуха Cuckoo in their own countries and when they have moved and settled in other lands. Within the Middle East and Turkey, I have worked with a number of dynastic, family-owned organisations, from conglomerates to mid-sized operations. These often have a further characteristic of being strongly hierarchical, which has worked within local culture until now. Arguably, they may need to look at this in the next few years. Europe and the UK have had their own success stories, and we had a large number which started out in the days of the Industrial Revolution and through Victorian times.
There are many companies still operating today which owe their existence to the beliefs and drive of the early industrialists who were often very philanthropic and also paternalistic. Some of these were enlightened enough to move with the times, others faded as they failed to adapt to different expectations from customers and staff. What are the specific issues for family businesses? There are some key challenges:
- Managing the family dynamic and relationship
- Managing and leading the business successfully
- Managing the relationship with the people working in the business
- Managing the business through change – with all of the above!
One of the dimensions to be addressed is which family members are involved and what are the plans, or opportunities, for others to join the business? If
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