Working With Family Does Not Make Leadership Easier – Part 1

You can run the business and still be someone's daughter when you disagree. I know because I have done it. You have the title and the responsibility, but the parents who built the business still see things differently.

Being related does not make that conversation easier. Sometimes it makes it much harder, especially when employees are waiting to see whose direction to follow.

Over the years, I worked with my father and with my brothers and sister, although not all at the same time. Later, my husband and I co-owned and operated our Kia dealership.

There is something special about working with people who share your history. You care about what you are building together. You also learn things about each other, and about yourself, that might never have come up around the dinner table.

I would not trade those experiences. But I also won't pretend they were always easy.

Working with family taught me that the conversations we avoid because we are related are often the ones the business needs most.

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Why can working with family be so difficult?

Working with family is difficult because a disagreement about work can quickly become personal.

You may be questioning how something is done, while the other person hears you questioning their judgment. A parent may believe they are giving useful advice. Their adult child may hear that they still don't trust them to make a decision.

I respected and looked up to my father. He was also tough on me. There were times when I felt I was being corrected for things someone else might have gotten away with.

People sometimes assume that growing up in a dealership means having it easy. I had a good life and opportunities I am grateful for. That does not mean every part of working in the family business was easy.

There is a difference between expecting a family member to earn their place and holding them to a tougher standard to prove there is no favoritism.

Neither special treatment nor being harder on someone because of their last name is fair.

Decide what the job requires, then judge the work against that standard. The person doing it should not have to guess whether they are being assessed as an employee or as someone's child.

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What happens when family members are underpaid?

Family members can be underpaid, just as they can be overpaid. We hear plenty about relatives who get a generous salary because of who they are.

Less attention goes to the person whose responsibilities keep growing while their pay stays the same. Being family can make an unfair arrangement easier to overlook and harder to question.

Sometimes the owner assumes a relative will speak up if there's a problem. Sometimes the relative assumes the owner will notice how much they are doing.

There may also be an expectation that family should sacrifice more for the business. Over time, someone can end up earning less than the business would have to pay an unrelated person to do the same work.

That deserves a direct conversation.

• Compare the actual role with similar jobs and review whether the pay reflects the responsibility.
• Any ownership interest or agreed profit sharing should be discussed separately and clearly.

A vague promise that the business will “all be yours one day” is not an agreed plan, and it doesn't answer what someone should earn today.

If you are a family employee, speak up before frustration takes over. Explain how your work has changed and ask for a proper review.

If you are the owner, don't treat someone's silence as proof the arrangement is fair. You are still responsible for reviewing the people you employ.

Being related should make an honest conversation possible, not make it unnecessary.

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Can you fire a family member?

Sometimes you need to fire a family member. It is an uncomfortable reality of running a business with relatives.

If someone cannot or will not do the job, being related to the owner doesn't change that. It can make the decision more painful, but the rest of the staff should not have to carry poor performance indefinitely because the family wants to avoid an argument.

That does not mean firing someone at the first sign of trouble. They should know what is expected and receive honest feedback about where they are falling short.

If the role is a poor fit, another position may be worth considering if they can do that job well. Creating a position simply to avoid letting them go moves the problem rather than solving it.

Who takes responsibility for the decision?

When firing becomes necessary, the person responsible for the decision needs to own it.

There is a difference between asking the appropriate manager to handle a dismissal and passing it to another relative because you cannot face the conversation yourself.

Putting a sibling in the middle while the owner avoids responsibility can damage relationships long after employment ends.

The leaders involved need to agree on the decision and stand behind it.

If one person delivers the news while another privately suggests they would have handled it differently, the person being fired has been given someone to blame.

The business may have ended the employment, but the family has made the fallout worse by refusing to be honest about who made the decision.

Even a fair decision can hurt a relationship. That is part of what makes working with family difficult.

But keeping someone in a role they are not doing well also has a cost:

• Other employees cover the work.
• Managers lose credibility when they cannot enforce expectations.
• The relative may be allowed to struggle for years without anyone telling them the truth.

Avoiding the decision doesn't protect anyone from its consequences.

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How do you work with a spouse who is different from you?

Different personalities can help a partnership when you use those differences well.

My husband has a strong Type A personality, and I do not. We have worked well together from the beginning, but that does not mean it was always easy.

Dealing with that level of intensity every day can be exhausting, even when you respect the person and value what they bring.

He was often the muscle I needed, and I was his voice of reason. We complemented each other.

Most importantly, our employees could usually count on us to agree on how we ran the business. They didn't have to settle our differences before they could do their jobs.

Presenting a united front

We were sometimes called “mom and dad.” If someone didn't like one of our answers, they would go to the other, hoping for a different one.

That usually backfired because we were aligned.

Once employees learn that going around one person gets them what they want, you have given them a reason to keep doing it.

Of course, a decision can change when new information comes in. But speak to each other before giving the employee a different answer.

Explain what has changed and why.

You do not have to think alike to work well together. You do need to make sure your staff can trust the direction they receive.

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What needs to be agreed before a problem starts?

Family members need to know who makes which decisions and how they will settle disagreements.

They also need regular conversations about their jobs. Don't wait until someone is angry about their pay or refusing to follow instructions to decide what should have been clear from the start.

This matters when a parent begins handing over the business.

Giving an adult child a title does not settle how much control the parent is willing to give up. If the owner can still change every important decision without a conversation, the handover is incomplete.

Be honest about what has been passed on and what the owner still wants to approve. Employees need to understand that arrangement too.

Working with family can be rewarding. There is pride in building something together and a depth of commitment that is hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it.

But being close does not mean you agree, and caring about each other does not mean you are managing each other fairly.

Think about the conversation you keep putting off because it feels too personal. Make time for it before the problem grows.

Your family relationships matter, and so do the people who depend on you to run the business well.

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You don't have to navigate family leadership challenges alone

This is the kind of leadership challenge I want women to be able to talk about honestly in Drive Her Forward.

You can care deeply about the people involved and still need to change how you work together.

An outside perspective can help you see where you have been making assumptions, including what you may need to do differently.

That is much easier to examine with people who will support you and also ask the question you have been avoiding.

If you are facing a conversation like this, I invite you to explore Drive Her Forward. You do not need to wait until you have it all figured out to join the discussion.

Explore Drive Her Forward

In the next article in this series, I will look at the other side of the relationship: what it is like to work for a family that cannot agree, and what those employees deserve from their leaders.