Grappling with the humanity of the hero

The hour was late in London. And jet lag was creeping in. Though exhausted—physically, mentally, and emotionally—Bill Wrigley Jr., son of William Wrigley, heir of the William Wrigley Jr. Company, founded by his great grandfather William Wrigley Jr., hammered out a business deal with his partners from India. At Bill's initiative, the company was exploring expansion into India. At the age of 28, Bill Jr. was spearheading this effort as well as running the Canadian subsidiary and chewing-gum base subsidiary, which supplied materials to all of the company's manufacturing facilities worldwide. He was traveling the world at a dizzying pace.

Bill had been named assistant to the president, but he already felt the impending weight of future leadership. Adding to the emotional load was the burden of trying to run his areas of responsibility just like his father did—trying to be everywhere at once and managing every detail. As he remembers it, “I was running around…trying to be like my dad.” In the London flat that night, the pressure bore down on him. Bill Jr. withdrew momentarily from the meeting, not feeling well, and was sick in the bathroom. Returning to the meeting immediately after, he finished the business at hand. When the meeting was over, Bill thought to himself, “If I keep operating like this, I'm not going to make it to 40!”

His mind reeled as he thought back to recent events of the previous day, as well as the culmination of traversing three continents in a matter of days and overseeing the painstaking details he was managing as he followed his father's path. That night, Bill's gut told the truth: The stress of emulating his father was beginning to clash with who he was and who he wanted to be as a leader. This internal dissonance prompted him to give a voice to the truth: “From this point forward, I am going to start doing things differently.”

Getting sick that night was a pivotal point in Bill's life. He steered away from his father's style of leadership and began defining what style of leadership resonated with Bill—the next generation. He made a break.

Bill realized that he was trying to emulate not just his father but also the command-and-control leadership philosophy of an entire generation of Americans. They were the Greatest Generation, leading in a way that worked for a country emerging from the Great Depression and World War II. And Bill's father exemplified the best of that generation: a strong work ethic, loyalty to his people, and genuine compassion for them. For years, the company had thrived under this leadership style.

But it wasn't working for Bill, for one increasingly obvious reason—a blind spot so big that Bill had initially lost himself in it: He was not his father, though he was trying to be him.

The involuntary gut check in London prompted an integrity check as well. Leading as his father led was frustrating and stifling to him, because it wasn't true to Bill's strengths and his skill sets as well as his personal philosophy of how to get the best out of people.

It also stifled the company. The command-and-control model, which Bill describes as “the pollinating bee effect,” demanded that every decision, no matter how small, got the “king” bee's approval. “If you wanted to change the color of the carpet in China, the approval had to come from my father's desk!” In effect, the pollination was inhibiting growth. What had been so successful in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s now frustrated innovation among the organization's top leaders across the globe. Bill realized that he would have to redefine a vision of success for himself first, and then for the company.

Born in the Shadows

This scenario plays out in different ways for people like Bill, children of powerful parents who are called to lead successful family businesses into the next era. These children are born into a story already being told about their parents, their families, and businesses. Larger than life, the stories of heroism, history, and success seem impossible to replicate. Historically, family businesses have been the backbone of our economy and our communities, and the stories of the founder and the family have grown with each succession. Family businesses, however, are more than lore; they are the natural unit of our economic enterprise. They take greater ownership and responsibility for the long-term well-being of their businesses, through stewardship of both their financial assets and investing in their employees, and their communities.¹

I believe that family businesses can continue to solidify our economies into the future. But the challenge is great. Huge corporations dominate the economic landscape. Many of these are relatively new, responsive organizations that started small but grew to rule the market (like Amazon and Google). We laud entrepreneurs who build these companies, and often overlook those who have built strong and stable organizations across generations. Building a strong business is one challenge; building an organization that can sustain both a family and a business that benefits family, employees, and the community across generations is an entirely different challenge.

The individuals at the center of these legacy companies are family business successors. These successors have the herculean task of trying to establish their own identities, passions, and beliefs, and develop their own leadership styles while dealing with the expectations and shadows of their parents', grandparents', and great grandparents' success.

My 20 years working with family business owners and teaching successors in the Next Generation Leadership Institute at Loyola University Chicago's Quinlan School of Business and through Next Generation activities with the Family Business Network confirms the struggle of a successor to emerge from the shadows cast by these stories. In one sense, the stories help successors make sense of their relationship with their parents and their family history. They can inspire the successor to think big. But too often in the telling of these stories, the parents' failures and vulnerabilities become appendices to the larger narrative, or are lost altogether in the repeated recounting of their heroics. If a parent is building an empire, a child reasons, the stories explain their parents' absence and why they always felt like a runner-up in the pick of priorities. The stories create myths of the predecessor, encouraging the idea that the successor must lead without vulnerability or failure, and that success comes from an almost magical quality that their parent possesses. This prompts the next generation to excessively emulate their parents and to avoid failure at all costs. What confidence a successor may possess can be crushed by the monolithic message, “You'll never be as good as your dad.”

Definition of the Myth

When these stories are treated as truth, they can have an inspiring effect on both the family and the business. But when the stories grow into legends, they can lose their grounding in facts. They become myth, an amalgamation of fact and fiction that can cast a very long shadow. When it conveys a worldview based on values of self-determination, caring for employees and the community, hard work, and achievement, a founding myth can be a powerful generative force in a family. But when a myth focuses exclusively on the founder or the family mythology (in later generation family businesses), it stifles the family and curtails the legacy. The shadow lengthens as the story is interpreted by family, employees, customers, and the community. Wanting to create a heroic leader, we overlook the weaknesses, failures, and idiosyncrasies that are also a part of the story. And wanting to bask in the glory of the myth, many predecessors encourage its growth and development. In the mythical version, the predecessors become like deities.

The shadow the mythology creates makes the successor's task seem almost impossible, and the predecessor's success seemingly magical. The truth shows otherwise. The successes of the predecessors and of the family were the result of hard work and vision, combined with failure, doubts, the contributions and support of others, and even a bit of luck. Too often, the ego enjoys bathing in the glory of this myth, encouraging it to flourish.

This book explores how next-generation leaders who follow in the footsteps of their mythic parents, grandparents, as well as aunts and uncles, can step outside of the shadows these stories create and leverage their legacy for success, see their parents in the light of reality, and understand their own gifts and bring them to the table for the benefit of both the family and the business.

A Journey to Generative Leadership

Over the course of several years, I have interviewed successors in family businesses from across the globe, children of iconic families who stepped out of the shadow of the myth. Such leaders include Bill Wrigley Jr., Christie Hefner, Pierre Emmanuel Taittinger, Massimo Ferragamo, John Tyson, Dick DeVos, Karl-Erivan Haub, and many others. I have interviewed successors from second-generation to eleventh-generation family businesses—all of whom grew up in the shadow of highly successful parents (and sometimes grandparents and great-grandparents) and yet took their family business to another level of success. Amidst self-doubt, family scrutiny, employee skepticism, and public pressure, these leaders took on the difficult job of following either a founder or another successful ancestor, and established themselves as authentic, credible, and generative leaders. They figured out how to lead in a way that emerged from a strong sense of who they are. They did not merely copy the predecessor's leadership approach, “attaching” their personality to it. Instead, they learned to be guided by their own rudder of conviction and step into their unique talents, interests, and experiences.

Myths and Mortals is the story of how successors become strong leaders in their own right, demystifying the idealized version of their predecessors and recognizing their shortcomings as well as honoring their successes. These leaders step out of the shadows of their predecessors and define a new reality for themselves, their family, and their business. This book is not the definitive narrative of the stories of these well-known families and businesses, but it is the authentic narrative of these successors who have had the courage to step out of the shadows of their parents, step into leadership, and improve on what has been given to them. In my research, I discovered that while there were clear indicators that someone would succeed in the family business, each story was unique. That's because each person had to wrestle with the task of developing a realistic sense of the predecessor (their strengths and weaknesses) and who he or she was (his or her strengths or weaknesses). Massimo Ferragamo, second-generation member of Salvatore Ferragamo, explained it this way:

Some people chase [their parent's success] for their lifetime—sons of actors, sons of singers, they think that they can be just like them and always live with a cloud of [the] parent in their lives. This is very dangerous because everyone is different…you have to understand what your calling in life [is], what you should be doing and improve on what has been given to you, but you can't emulate.

The chase to be like someone else is exhausting, unending, and unattainable. A son or daughter cannot catch up to that which he or she was never meant to be. In fact, based on my research, I discovered that successors who develop a strong sense of self-awareness, a sense of their own identity, who can separate themselves from their legendary parents and grandparents, have the greatest chance of creating what is most foundational to success in a family business—credibility. Credibility has two components: believing in yourself (internal credibility) and others believing in you (external credibility). It's having enough self-confidence to inspire others' confidence in you.

Internal credibility is the degree to which we perceive ourselves to be qualified, trustworthy, and capable in the world. Internal credibility starts when our parents give us an inherent sense that we are valued and loved for who we are. We then can measure our credibility by our performance at certain tasks and by external verification of success. Internal credibility is solidified when we hear someone else tell us, “You did a great job.” This objective verification can reinforce a subjective understanding of ourselves as valuable. We have inherent value, but we also have value in the world.

External credibility is the degree to which we have established our reputation with others, who come to believe we are qualified, competent, and credible through our actions and behaviors. We establish external credibility objectively through our performance and our track record, and subjectively by our ability to understand and have empathy for others and respond appropriately to their needs. We know we have external credibility when people choose to follow us.

It's impossible for a successor to lead without credibility. The mere reality of being a successor encourages the successor to think about his value, strengths, and skill sets only in relation to his parents and grandparents. In many ways, a young leader in a family business is in the one-down position. Employees may think he or she doesn't truly deserve the role of leader. Board members may support the decision, but inwardly think, “She will never be like her father.” And the media tend to look for news that supports failure, not success. This is the successor's curse.

This was the case for the Steinbrenner family, the owners of the New York Yankees. For years, George Steinbrenner (widely referred to as “The Boss”) and the New York Yankees dominated the New York City sports scene. New Yorkers revered Steinbrenner for bringing championship baseball back to the world's most dynamic city. In November 2008, due to declining health, George passed the reins of the Yankees to his son, Hal. In contrast to George's gregarious, publicity-hungry personality, Hal was introverted and preferred to focus on the business of baseball rather than seeking the spotlight. Stepping into the role that his father had filled for so long was a daunting task.

This stark contrast in personalities between father and son led many in the New York press to question Hal's passion for baseball, his commitment to winning, and his ability to lead baseball's most famous franchise. In fact, in 2014, four years after his father's death, and six years after he became the managing partner of the Yankees, The New York Post published an article titled “Hal Steinbrenner Reveals a Very Un-Boss-Like Agenda for Yankees.” The shadow cast by George Steinbrenner's legacy continues to draw public focus to the ways Hal is different from his father, and the automatic assumption is that this is bad.² In referencing the Yankee's inability to make the playoffs in 2014, this article notes that George Steinbrenner's traditional approach was to assign blame and fire managers in an attempt to appease the fans. Yet Hal set a different course when he responded to the media. He said, “Changes will not be made in the organization for show. You will be held responsible if the job is not getting done. Any change we do make, I will feel the job was not getting done and we could do better.”

The assumption is that in order to be successful, you have to lead the way of the predecessor. The reality is that Hal's skill sets may be better suited to the needs of today's Yankees, but this will be determined over time. First, Hal's task is to prove himself, to earn his credibility, and build his track record. Hal Steinbrenner faces the constant challenge of living in his legendary father's shadow, questioned at every turn when he does something that seems different from the way George would have done it.

This type of questioning can make successors feel like mere mortals in the shadow of their mythic parents. It can spur self-doubt, the biggest obstacle to their credibility and to becoming a generative leader, someone who can build a foundation for success across generations. At some level, every leader has to believe in his or her right to lead. It's a long, tortuous road to establish credibility in a successful family business. But those who succeed have figured out a way to establish authenticity and, consequently, credibility, which serves as a foundation for successful leadership. One of the tasks in establishing this credibility is to become aware of—and then to address—the myths surrounding the success of the previous generation.

I Am Not My Father (Differentiation)

Successors can easily lose themselves when they are caught in the shadow of a dominating mythology. Family businesses (and the myths surrounding them) encourage enmeshment, the belief that everyone should think in one way. This stifles the individual's sense of autonomy and sense of personal boundaries. The process of finding one's self starts when the successor can begin to separate and push against the predecessor. Bill Wrigley Jr. started that separation when he realized, “I am not my father. I don't have to lead like him.”

Separating is the process of differentiation, which is the cornerstone of a family business legacy's foundation, and a theme I will come back to repeatedly in this book. Differentiation is the ongoing work of developing a strong sense of self, and harnessing that strength for the growth of the family legacy. Everyone is faced with the task of differentiation, of growing up to become their own person. However, it's especially challenging for successors who bring family legends to work with them every day. The more dominant the mythology and the more powerful the personality that fuels it, the harder it becomes for a successor to downsize the hero and make him human, and to break free of the shadow.

Differentiation is a successor's inner work, and it is a lifetime process. My research shows that successful successors become generative leaders by developing a practice of pursuing differentiation and establishing a strong sense of self. Bill Wrigley pushed the William Wrigley Jr. Company to reinvent itself when he found the strength to push away from his father and lean into his own convictions. At that point, he realized he could do things differently from his father. Bill Wrigley released himself from his father's shadow so that he could focus his energies and his emotion on doing what he needed to do to sustain the family legacy. He moved from emotional inertia to action.

It Takes a Personal Vision

The work of differentiation leads to inner illumination, as the successor, no longer eclipsed by the shadow of a legendary founder, begins to find out who she is and what she wants. The inner light of knowing one's self shines outward and becomes the source for developing a personal vision.

To know one's self is to recognize the humanity of those leaders who led before, as well as the humanity of those within the family and the business. Generative successors perpetuate the family legacy as they understand that their legendary predecessors were mortals with a heroic stripe. Given their flaws, the heroism of founders and their predecessors is all the more remarkable.

Bill Wrigley reflected this understanding when he introduced the motto, “Respect the past, but always do what's right for the future.” This was born out of his recognition that while many of the traits of his father's leadership were core to its success, they may not serve the company well moving forward. His father's drive and authority were why the company grew during an era following the great world wars.

But to lead the company into a rapidly changing global environment, Bill realized he would have to reengineer the organization, and “do what's right for the future.” This is where values meet vision, and successors must craft their own personal vision for the future to carry family values forward, rather than merely emulating what their parents did.

Defining one's success, independent from the way parents, family, and the community define it, is critical in differentiated leadership. What distinguishes successful successors in family businesses is their ability to respect and understand the past, while charting their own path, even in the face of resistance. The strength for defining one's own success comes from the hard work of separation, stepping out of the shadows of the myth: “I am not who my parents or anyone else want me to be.” The leader's vision is formed both by traits shared with his or her parents and traits foreign to them. Leaders who embrace both establish a unique identity. They achieve personal authenticity and political credibility, foundational to establishing a vision of success.

A personal vision is the door that swings between internal and external credibility.

Later in this book we will examine how successors establish confidence in themselves and credibility with others. My research will show that family business leaders who succeed differentiate by building self-awareness, building a belief in themselves, and building the belief in others that they can be credible and generative leaders. This process leads successors to develop a rudder of conviction based on a clear sense of passion and values. Vision then leverages this inner work and turns it outward to the world. Successors have paid their dues; vision pays it forward. Vision is more than how one sees the world. It is also how the world sees a person as he projects himself to the world.

True vision is the extension of one's true self, how leaders serve their core convictions, so others know what matters to them.

Strong leaders can pursue those convictions in the most unlikely of circumstances. Christie Hefner wanted to work on Capitol Hill, but she altered her career trajectory to work at Playboy Enterprises. As different as she was from her father, Hugh Hefner, Christie was able to lead Playboy alongside him. He was its personae, and she was its voice. “I wasn't interested in being a personality, or, God forbid, a celebrity,” Christie says. “I had to chart my own course. As different as my father and I are, he is authentic and true to himself, and I needed to be authentic and true to myself.” The hard work of establishing internal credibility converges into a personal vision of success that makes the business more successful in achieving its mission.