Strong Bonds, Strong Business: Building Trust in Family Businesses
Navigating family business relationships can be complex. These challenges may prompt you to consider engaging an outside expert to guide you through the conflicts your family faces. This raises questions such as, “Are there professionals skilled at equipping family business leaders with effective leadership strategies?”
Fearing the longevity and success of your business due to ongoing conflicts and challenges is common. The good news is a coach can help you learn new strategies and skills to ensure the success of your family business.
In this article, we’ll cover the building blocks of trust that are essential in a family business. We’ll further discuss how these elements benefit your family business, providing you with tips on how to integrate these elements into your daily work.
What Are the Building Blocks of Trust in a Family Business?
Around 27.3% of businesses in the United States are family-owned. Operating a successful business as a family requires trust among its members. Various aspects of trust may benefit your organization and provide stability that can continue through generations.
Components of trust that may benefit your family business include:
Accountability
Professionalism
Transparency
Consistency
Jen Traeger, Executive Coach, specializes in unlocking your family business potential through expert guidance and coaching. With personal experience and a business leadership background, our goal is to provide business leaders with the tools and support that will cultivate success.
A customizable package can be created with the following services:
5 Powerful Benefits of Building Trust in a Family Business
#1: Stronger Relationships
Creating deeper personal and professional bonds among family members can create a sense of unity and connectedness with each other. As your relationships grow, you begin to understand and develop a sense of appreciation for each family member and how they impact the business as a whole.
With a stronger understanding of each other, you may begin to recognize where their strengths and weaknesses are, see when a member is struggling, and know how to help them specifically.
Receiving professional training can help strengthen connections within your family. Jen Traeger has a deep understanding of how important a strong relationship between both family executives and non-family executives is. Her experience within her own family business has given her insight into how to support and guide others in successfully leading their family business.
#2: Open Communication
Having open communication may allow each family member to feel more comfortable in voicing their thoughts and opinions. Creating a supportive environment for people to contribute their ideas may help your business grow and evolve through the strengths of its members.
Keeping communication professional, especially through disagreements, might keep relationships strong and help family members reach an agreement with confidence and trust.
#3: Smarter Decisions
Through transparency, accountability, and consistency, you may gain confidence in each other’s judgment. Trusting one another can lead to faster, more effective decision-making and can strengthen the decision-making process. This not only creates a positive dynamic among members but also benefits the business’s goals and efficiency, resulting in an atmosphere that fosters success.
#4: Business Stability
Establishing trust within your business can strengthen long-term commitments and aid in succession planning. People who are confident in the trustworthiness and consistency of their organization are more likely to continue to uphold the same values throughout generations.
Executive Coach, Jen Traeger,provides services that assist in succession planning. A survey showed that 32% of business owners are worried about the transfer of their business to the next generation. When you have put hard work and dedication into a business, knowing it will transition successfully through the generations is an encouragement worth investing in. Learning the proper strategies, skills, and planning can create stability in your business that can be taken to the next generations and beyond.
#5: Respected Reputation
A family business that trusts each other can build credibility with their clients, potential clients, partners, and employees. Showing others through your interactions may provide insight into how you work to achieve professionalism and trust within your family business. By building trust and respect within the business, you naturally extend those same values to your clients.
5 Tried-And-True Tips for Building Trust in Family Businesses
#1: Define Roles & Responsibilities
Having clear set roles for each person within your business will help avoid confusion and conflict. Each person should understand their responsibilities and be encouraged that everyone's efforts are equally rewarded. Establishing clarity and confidence may assure each person that their role within the business is important and respected.
#2: Lead by Example
Consistently leading by example through professionalism, accountability, and transparency so you can model the important attributes that you want your members to encompass. Being a leader who honors commitments, promises, and agreements might give the members of your organization the confidence that your leadership is to be trusted.
Executive Coach, Jen Traeger, offers business leadership training to help individuals develop the necessary skills to become effective leaders.
Contact us to schedule a complimentary discovery call to discuss how our services can benefit you and your business.
#3: Foster Mutual Respect
An organization that values each person’s ideas, contributions, and boundaries may help encourage an open and healthy communication among its members. All levels of employees should feel confident that they will be heard and respected.
Keeping business and family conflicts separate is important in creating a healthy work environment. Family dynamics and tension can often trickle into interactions, creating a stressful workplace. Gaining skills to professionally resolve conflicts can help individuals keep personal matters outside of the business and focus on solutions for the benefit of the business.
#4: Invest in Professional Development
Continuing to learn new ways to support trust, gain leadership tools, and develop succession strategies can improve your organization as a whole. Skills such as open communication, keeping business and family conflicts separate, and upholding respect throughout relationships may create a strong and stable business.
With personal experience and expert knowledge, Jen Traeger, Executive Coach, is here to support and guide you through creating long-term business success. She will encourage you, help you develop skills, and empower you to become the leader you deserve to be.
Reach out to begin receiving thesupport and knowledgeto improve your business and your potential as a leader.
#5: Celebrate Successes Together
Working as a professional and cohesive team to achieve goals and progress should be celebrated. Creating bonds over business achievements as well as personal wins may create a sense of pride among the people of your organization.
Giving recognition and showing appreciation to all members may improve work productivity and growth within your business. Creating a positive environment can encourage consistency in effort and accountability.
Partner With Executive Coach Jen Traeger To Cultivate Trust and Growth in Your Family’s Business
Executive Coach, Jen Traeger, is here to guide you to clarity and confidence in yourself and your business. By creating a customized coaching package, you will receive expert advice and tools specific to your situation and goals.
If you have goals of creating a family business that will last through the generations, Jen Traeger’s experience and knowledge can increase your professional growth and ensure your business has the tools and plans that will achieve generational success.
Reach out and schedule an exploratory call today.
