Emotion detector

The succession of a family business can be a challenging time. When handing down the reins through the family, emotions can be one of the most influential underlying mechanisms in determining the next leader.

To investigate the role of emotions in chief executive succession, a study was conducted that monitored the emotions of those involved in the succession process in 20 family businesses.¹ It was discovered that successors experience a wide range of ambivalent emotions, both positive (pride, joy) and negative (anxiety, frustration). The simultaneous activation of both positive and negative emotions creates emotional ambivalence. The research shows that ambivalent emotions typically arise during chief executive selection and integration, and will depend on the nature of relationships between the family and the firm.

Ambivalent emotions in context

Although in some family businesses the family and the business spheres largely overlap (i.e., a ‘fusional’ family business), in other firms the two spheres tend to be either more ‘balanced’ or more ‘disengaged’ (even distant) from one another.

Chief executive successors experience a wider range of ambivalent emotions in a fusional family business than in a balanced or disengaged one. This is because in a fusional family business there is greater cohesion and emotional intimacy between family members, which leaves little room for privacy and independence, and this intensifies both ambivalent emotions and emotional transfer from private to professional settings.

In a balanced family business, boundaries between work and private life are set more effectively, enabling chief executive successors to preserve close relationships with the incumbent without feeling overwhelmed by emotional pressures coming from the incumbent.

In a disengaged family business, however, chief executive successors experience less ambivalence due to the significant separation between family and professional spheres and roles, which offers them a great deal of independence in decision making.

Besides ambivalent emotions towards the family business and their future leadership role, chief executive successors may feel mixed emotions towards all family members.

Ambivalence towards the father/incumbent

This emotional ambivalence is common in fusional family businesses, quite rare in balanced ones and absent in disengaged ones.

During chief executive selection, the overlap between the role of child and that of successor can generate mixed emotions of admiration for the father’s achievements and anxiety due to the risk of failure as a leader compared to the father’s example.

During the appointment of a chief executive successor, successors may also feel mixed emotions of gratitude at being entrusted with the responsibility of future leader and exasperation at the little room for manoeuvre they have in their new role because of the incumbent’s pressure to comply with their expectations.

Ambivalence towards the mother

In fusional family businesses, there may be ambivalence towards the mother. Successors may feel gratitude towards their mother, rooted in childhood experiences. However, this can be mixed with feelings of disappointment, as some mothers might have put their perceived ‘mothering duties’ second after the family business’ interests.

Ambivalence towards siblings and cousins

More commonly in fusional family businesses, and rarely in balanced family businesses, successors may confess mixed feelings of guilt, envy and sadness, as opposed to positive emotions like tenderness towards younger family members.

Being chosen as a future leader over siblings and cousins may give rise to pride, but also to culpability, which breeds discontent.

Legitimacy versus emancipation

The management of ambivalent emotions by chief executive successors operates in relation to two main objectives pursued throughout the succession process: legitimacy and emancipation in relation to the incumbent.

When a successor wants to be recognised as a legitimate leader, they tend to deploy defensive strategies for managing mixed emotions, such as avoidance or compromise, aimed at securing social approval and ensuring incumbent support. Chief executive successors’ efforts to mask their true emotions while displaying what they believe to be an appropriate public face are seen as essential to achieving a leadership position. Indeed, this seems to help them preserve familial harmony and strengthens, in the eyes of the incumbent, the successor’s legitimacy as a new leader.

When, on the contrary, a successor wants to strengthen their autonomy of choice and action, they tend to deploy confrontational strategies for managing mixed emotions to show others that they are different or even better than the incumbent. This puts stress on familial harmony but contributes to the successor’s emancipation from the incumbent’s expectations and power. Emancipation, however, requires courage and runs the risk of damaging family relations with the incumbent.