Working together can solidify a family, but with festering attitudes, can also dissolve it. Successful business owning families adopt an attitude of dealing with issues, not personalities, in which everyone has a legitimate say, and every person is treated with complete respect, regardless of what has been transpired before. The present generation operating the company regards itself as stewards of the family asset, and want to turn it over to the next generation in better condition than when they took it over. There is an important difference between management or stewardship on one hand, and leadership on the other. Managers are concerned with developing tools by which they can get work done through and with other people.
Leadership conveys a broader mission than management.
Attitudes are spawned, developed, nurtured, and immortalized through leadership. The leaders of successful companies seek and analyze the attitudes of other business cultures. They adopt these attitudes in management meetings, mission statements, training programs, value statements, and in company policies regarding employees, customers, stockholders and the general public. In family businesses, attitudes are spawned, developed, nurtured, and immortalized beginning at the birth of the first offspring, and continue beyond retirement. Especially in the family firm, attitude development needs frequent water, fertilizer and pruning.