Building Next Generation Leadership: A Strategic Framework for Family Firms

Developing next generation leadership is critical to sustain organisations, even more so for family controlled businesses because they are prone to failure on this count. The interplay of family and business sub-systems uniquely influences next generation leadership development strategy in family firms. Though leadership development strategy and process have been examined in extant literature, these have not been adequately researched in the family business context, particularly in an emerging economy like India. Therefore, following case methodology, we examine the next generation leadership development strategy of 15 Indian family firms and identify the pathways adopted by the incumbent and next generation leaders. We found that early strategic focus on building key capabilities and phased development process, were instrumental in a successful next generation leadership development strategy.