Family Leadership Strategies

84 enterprises or sources of family wealth. As we have mentioned, one of the greatest challenges families face is that demands on wealth (distributions, taxes, etc.) often grow faster than the growth rate of the underlying assets as families grow in number. Informal family leader roles While lacking an official title, this is nonetheless a critical role in the family system. He or she is not defined by age or position in the family as such, but is recognizable by his or her influence over family matters. Informal leaders exhibit influence either by virtue of their personalities or life experience. An informal family leader is often regularly consulted by family members and feels free to express views contrary to those of the acknowledged family leader. He or she may help to harmonize or disrupt the family system. In large families, informal family leaders may be numerous and cross various family boundaries. 1 This is most often the case with first generation wealth creators, as wealth is passed to successive generations, formal roles such as CEO are less well defined.