Don’t Kid Yourself: Family, Business, and Faith are All Connected

In the introduction to his book, Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue (Guilford Press, 1985, p. 1), Edwin Friedman noted that:

All clergymen and clergywomen, irrespective of faith, are simultaneously involved in three distinct families whose emotional forces interlock: the families within the congregation, our congregations, and our own. Because the emotional processes in all these systems is identical, unresolved issues in any one of them can produce symptoms in the others, and increased understanding of any one creates more effective functioning in all three. [emphasis added]

Friedman revealed that dysfunction in one emotional system affects one’s functioning in other emotional systems. It is natural—even predictable—that one takes the malfunctioning ways of managing stress, conflict, needs, wants, desires, goals, or values into the other systems, causing problems in the other systems.

Applying Friedman’s thinking to business leadership, I will submit that most business leaders operate in three emotional systems: their family, business, and faith community. The emotional processes in all three systems are identical. For leaders not connected to a faith community, we could substitute civic community or a significant peer network in the third circle.

One can easily discern how a leader’s dysfunction can affect all three areas. Because of the power top-tier leaders hold in a business, it is clear that their health or dysfunction will be imprinted onto the company. The results of this imprintation will be seen as a business problem to solve rather than an individual problem the leader needs to address.

As a faith-based psychologist who coaches business owners, I may have an executive sitting in front of me who needs and wants change, but it is hard for me not to see the “others” in the room, even though they are not physically present. To help my client fully, I must understand (to a point) the leader’s immediate family, business family, and faith family (if any).

This is why a 360-degree review of the leader’s persona and functioning, including one or two family members as reviewers, is vital to uncovering and understanding the leader’s world and how best to move forward.

Only a holistic, decompartmentalizing approach to coaching a business leader will achieve maximum, lasting results. Coaches who consider only the business system will surely miss the broader and more critical interactions between the leader’s family and faith systems. All three are essential to understand if the leader will experience lasting change.