The following was originally posted on Medium in February 2016
A client recently described her perception of what makes leadership in a family business different from a corporation. She said that working in a family business is a switch that does not go off and you can’t leave problems, issues, feelings, and frustrations at the door. Her logic is that family carries with it expectations, obligations, legacies and such. And of course you have to face these people outside if you don’t perform.
All true, yet it is my experience that many (if not most) people have the same difficulties leaving these things at the door in their average corporate roles. Most people in roles of responsibility and accountability carry their burdens home with them. Most also carry the burdens of ‘life’ back to the office. If this were not true there would not be an entire industry preaching the gospel of work-life balance.
The explanation is simple. Our family, whatever it looked like, is the first ‘organization’ that any of us belonged to, and at the most impressionable time in our lives. That organization had history that far preceded us and a future that extends beyond our ability to see. That organization had a way that ‘things are done’ and even if we hated it, we learned it. We will see that original organization in every other one we are part of for the rest of our lives regardless how hard we might try to separate ourselves from it. People in the workplace will play the part of family members. Martyrs, victims, super-achievers and clowns alike. Those behaviors will spring deep seated triggers in us based on how we learned to react in our original organization, and we will play our part in the theater.
You can’t forget, you can’t ignore, but you can transform. Learn to “see” yourself as others see you. Get at observation level of your own behaviors and understand your triggers, not just what they are, but WHY they are. When you do this you give yourself the ability to choose how to react.
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