The Intersection of Ownership and Leadership in Texas Ranch House: Lessons in Leadership for the Family Business

A family business often behaves and operates differently than a nonfamily-owned business. Family matters and dynamics can influence organizational health and business sustainability. Accordingly, leadership in a family business can embody challenges that are both different and magnified in comparison to leadership in other businesses. There is a particular requirement of owners of family businesses to structure the interface of family and business in a manner that assures a successful business while accommodating the interests of the family. This case study identifies lessons in leadership. The report embraces an overarching question regarding the roles and functions of an executive-level organizational leader and narrows the analysis to a focus on the application of the leadership lessons learned to the roles and functions of the owner-leader and his spouse in a start-up, family-owned business enterprise. The examined case is the short-lived Cooke Ranch, documented in the television miniseries Texas Ranch House. A family-owned business needs specific contributions from its ownership in order to thrive and endure. Prominent among these contributions are clarity and intention regarding leadership. A family business embodies overlapping and interdependent parts, each of which has specific leadership needs. The added complexity of family dynamics causes a successful family business to operate, adopt strategies, and make decisions differently than does a nonfamily business. This examination of Cooke Ranch reveals that perspectives, emphases, and behaviors of family business owners may or may not always translate as effective leadership. Owners who are preoccupied with the family and being owners instead of genuinely leading their family business organization can easily forfeit the whole enterprise. The identification of a distinguishable group of elements at the core of ownership?s interface with leadership?s exacting responsibilities in the television documentary Texas Ranch House adds to current research and literature regarding leadership in a family business. Three subsystems - ownership, family, and business/management - comprise an overall family business system that thrives when ownership is mindfully acting in ways that cultivate organizational health and unity. The case study reveals that ownership intersects leadership?s values, purpose/vision of continuity across generations, ethics/trust, decisions, and aligned results at the point it overlaps both the family and business subsystems in an interdependent organization. The report concludes that a thriving family-owned business is unique in composition, strength, and competence and that such a business demands that its leaders and their subordinates practice an advanced degree of organizational citizenship.?