“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
James Baldwin’s observation from his 1963 address “A Talk to Teachers,” is uncomfortable, timeless and stubbornly true. We may wish it weren’t so. We may prefer to believe that carefully chosen words, thoughtful family meetings or well-crafted values statements do all the lifting. But they don’t. Behavior does. And in family businesses, leadership is always on display for the next generation, whether that is our intention or not. That’s true for family leaders inside the business and for family owners outside of it. Culture, values and expectations are transmitted far more through example than instruction.
Family businesses tend to invest heavily in formal messaging for the next generation, including family meetings with structured agendas and mission statements distilling family values. All of that matters. But families often underestimate the power of informal modeling, the everyday signals that shape how the next generation understands leadership and ownership. Children and rising leaders notice how conflict is handled (or avoided), how non-family executives are treated, whether accountability applies equally to family members and how the business leaders react under stress. These moments form the real curriculum. They teach what is acceptable, what is rewarded and what is quietly tolerated.
I see this dynamic most clearly in my own role as a parent. Like most parents, I care deeply about the lessons my kids absorb. I also know that there’s often a gap between what we tell our children and what they actually take in. I try, imperfectly, to model the behaviors I hope to see: curiosity instead of certainty, respect for others, owning mistakes when I get something wrong and a strong work ethic. These were all lessons I learned by watching my parents, long before I had the opportunity to work with them.
For the next generation of family business leaders and owners, learning happens less in mentoring sessions and more through daily observation. They watch how decisions get made behind closed doors. They notice when governance rules bend because it’s inconvenient to follow them. They hear how family members talk about colleagues when they’re not in the room.
This is true even when the next generation doesn’t work in the business. They hear things at the dinner table. They pick up tone, frustration, pride and resentment. Our own company is on a hybrid-office schedule and I work remotely from home two days a week. My two daughters thus get windows into my actions as a business leader that they might not otherwise.
One of the great risks in family businesses is hypocrisy. It erodes trust faster than almost anything else. When what leaders say diverges from what they do, imitation isn’t rebellion, it’s learned behavior. The challenge, then, isn’t to find better words. It’s to look honestly in the mirror. Leadership in a family business isn’t a megaphone, but a reflection. Baldwin’s insight reminds us that across generations, what we model may matter more than anything we proactively try to teach.