When Family Conflict Already Exists: How to Move Forward Without Breaking the Business

What do you do when conflict is already present in your family business—and it’s not going away? 

In this episode, Elizabeth Ledoux sits down with Marcy McNeal to explore how families can navigate existing tension without damaging relationships or the business itself. 

From inherited behavioral patterns to unclear expectations and emotional reactions, this conversation gets to the root of why conflict feels so personal—and how to move it back into a productive, business-focused space. 

If you’ve ever felt stuck in difficult conversations, unsure how to hold your ground without shutting down or escalating, this episode offers practical tools you can use immediately. 

What You’ll Hear in This Episode: 

• Why family conflict often starts long before the business  
• The critical difference between hard conversations and real conflict  
• How childhood dynamics show up in leadership roles  
• Why clarity of expectations removes emotional tension
• How curiosity can shift even the most difficult conversations  
• The danger of tying love to agreement in family systems  

Chapters in this episode:

01:00 Introduction & Topic: When Conflict Already Exists 
02:21 Meet Marcy McNeal & Her Work 
03:06 Where Family Conflict Really Comes From 
06:00 Childhood Patterns in Business Relationships 
08:20 Hard Conversations vs. Real Conflict 
10:32 Making Conversations Productive Again 
12:04 Separating Personal from Business Issues 
14:28 Successor Readiness & Unclear Expectations 
16:47 Transition as a Journey, Not a Moment 
18:11 Impact of Conflict on Employees 
20:52 Holding Ground Without Defensiveness 
23:04 The Power of Curiosity 
24:43 Shared Decision-Making Challenges 
26:01 Learning Through Participation 
27:35 Belief, Confidence, and Influence 
30:04 Love, Behavior, and Misalignment 
30:52 One Tool to Shift Tension Immediately 
32:22 Closing Reflections 

Connect with Elizabeth Ledoux and the Transition Strategists: 
Website: https://transitionstrategists.com/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetransitionstrategists 
Elizabeth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethledoux/ 
Transition Strategists on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transitionstrategists/ 
Transition Strategists on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@transitionstrategists 

Subscribe to “The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux” on your favorite podcast player: 
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Get Elizabeth Ledoux and Laura Chiesman’s latest book, “It’s A Journey: The MUST-HAVE Roadmap to Successful Succession Planning”: https://amzn.to/3oq2LQv

When Family Conflict Already Exists: How to Move Forward Without Breaking the Business Transcript

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Business Transition Roadmap. I am super excited to be with you all today. And our topic for today is on what to do when family already has conflict. ⁓ We are joined today by Marcy McNeal and she is ⁓ one of my team members. We work together as transition guides at the Transition Strategist.

and she is a certified social and emotional intelligent coach. She’s trained in psychological safety and team effectiveness and communication and leadership development skills. I am so blessed to be able to work with her and I thought it would be wonderful to bring her on the show today just so that we can get her perspective on

what to do when a family already has conflicts. Today we’re going to dive deep into the emotional and strategic aspects of business transitions. As a family, what do you do when you have conflicts? Marcy, welcome to the show today and ⁓ I’m so grateful again for you to be here.

Marcy McNeal:
Thank you, Elizabeth. It’s really great to be here. This is a really important and powerful topic for families. So I’m excited to have a conversation with you about what we’ve each experienced in working with our amazing clients who have family businesses and also navigating their own family dynamics. So yeah, it’s really great to be here.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
So ⁓ I’m just going to dive right in. When a family is feeling conflict, and they believe that they already have it, so they’re already entrenched in it, what do you think is ⁓ the single biggest mistake that they make as they start to approach it? Where do they get stuck right off the bat?

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think to give my answer, think it warrants stepping back and just examining how families and family businesses sort of find themselves in conflict. And when you think about a family, one of the most complicated relationships we’ll ever have in our lives are with our parents. And we will always be navigating that until

you know, sadly the time when our parents are no longer with us. And, you know, it’s interesting to notice or to see people who work in a family business who have, started young and have just sort of grown up in the family business versus someone who maybe went away, got an education, maybe tried some different things professionally and came back. Because what you can, what you can, you can.

expect might happen with someone who starts in the family business and continues basically maybe for their entire career. How challenging it is to grow up the way they deal with conflict from when they were a child with their parents to now you’re an employee and maybe a leader with a business owner and how I think one of the mistakes that a family can find themselves in

is when they don’t recognize that pattern of behavior that is sort of just continuing into their business relationship, right? Mom and dad are the authority figures. They make the decisions. And, you know, when I was a kid, if I didn’t like that decision, maybe I threw a temper tantrum or maybe I withdrew or maybe I, whatever you did, that’s something that has to sort of be grown up.

And if you’re inside the business from a very young age and continuously, that takes a lot of work and effort to really shift those behaviors from I’m the child and mom and dad are in charge to I’m an employee and I have valuable things to share. And how do we navigate, you know, communicating and receiving on both ends that type of engagement?

Because it’s also a shift for quote unquote mom and dad, owners of the businesses. We make the decisions and ⁓ that can be a huge challenge when ⁓ everyone sort of just maybe pushes through that. And it’s just like, this is just how it is as opposed to recognizing where the conflict could be coming from, which honestly is just young behaviors.

Elizabeth:
Yeah.

Marcy McNeal:
or old behaviors that no longer serve where the relationship has gotten to. ⁓ And the role that a child may have now in a business and even in a very significant leadership role that they sort of don’t know how to navigate ⁓ stepping into that, into that role of leadership. And they might rock the boat sometimes. And so how do we navigate that?

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s really interesting Marcy because two things come to mind for me. ⁓ One is the idea and it was kind of a loaded question, right? Because and so is the topic here today because families always have conflict. ⁓ Even as a kid you, you know, disagree with your parents and I’m thinking of my grandchildren. ⁓ There’s we had a meltdown while we were skiing.

Marcy McNeal:
Good,

Elizabeth Ledoux:
With

Marcy McNeal:
yep.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
my six-year-old granddaughter, was a meltdown right on the slope. I would classify that as conflict between she and her dad. ⁓ the other thing that comes to mind is just the idea that, and it’s an idea that we talk about a lot in our work, is having a family business community versus a family community.

because the family community has certain boundaries, and that parent-child relationship is present there, typically because you’re very respectful. ⁓ The family business community, there’s inclusion and exclusion, but there’s also the idea that you potentially are peers to each other in a way as, because as an owner, you’re still an employee typically also. You just might be a leader.

⁓ And absolutely, as the kids become owners, you are a peer with them if you are a transitioner, because you’re just all owners. There doesn’t, you know, that hierarchy from the owner perspective ⁓ may change a little bit if you’re a general partner versus a limited partner. You could have a hierarchy there, but it’s not the same as it is in a family. Very different.

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and one of the things ⁓ that I work with many of my coaching clients on is the distinction or the difference between hard conversations and actual conflict. It’s very easy. Many people will think any kind of a hard conversation is a conflict and they’re not. You know, you can have hard conversations.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Hmm.

Marcy McNeal:
about things that you see differently. They can still be scary. I’m not saying that sometimes those conversations aren’t a little scary when it’s, know, mom and dad or the owner or whatever the case may be, but it is different than actual conflict of we are not going to find alignment. We are not going to be able to come to a compromise or something like that. to, know, where people are encamped in their own

position and refuse. So it is, is, and I think a lot of people when they kind of can distinguish a hard conversation versus actual conflict, it sort of diffuses the hard conversation a little bit for them. It’s like, okay, yeah, I can have a hard conversation and I will survive. And it might be uncomfortable, but it’s workable as opposed to like, we just can’t, we just can’t see.

or appreciate each other’s perspective. We aren’t willing to do that. It’s real conflict. Real conflict. And that does happen. And that does happen. Of course. So, yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. So what does a productive conversation look like ⁓ when people have stopped listening to each other? How do you navigate that? Because I love the idea of a hard conversation and hopefully we’re a, I don’t know any business ⁓ situation that goes on for a long time, a business relationship where you don’t have hard conversations. Those are critical to doing a good job.

Marcy McNeal:
Absolutely.

Elizabeth:
How do you have a productive conversation?

Marcy McNeal:
You know, one of the things that in particular in family businesses, because of the existing family relationship of siblings and parents and all of that, one of the first things that I have found can be really valuable is when people stop and recognize where their, let’s say, let’s call it upset is coming from. Is it because ⁓

of a young behavior, like this is personal. I’m going to get in trouble. Someone doesn’t like me. It’s because in business, these are not personal conversations. These are very practical, necessary decisions that need to be made. And when someone recognizes the difference between this is that this is not personal, it really opens up the space to say, OK, we’re having a conversation about X.

not about me and how somebody perceives me because I have this point of view or I’m making this recommendation or bringing up a topic that people aren’t really excited to talk about. And I think that delineation of this is not personal, not about me, really does create the space for that hard conversation to be productive, to say, we’re talking about X topic and how it impacts

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Go.

Marcy McNeal:
our business, the strategy, our employees, whatever it is. It’s not about you don’t like me, I’m mad at you, that, you know, any of that kind of thing. Now that’s easier said than done because it’s really recognizing. The first step is being able to recognize in the moment, I’m upset because I’m taking this personally because I think this person over here is judging me in a certain way. And I can recognize that their upset is probably about something else entirely if they are upset.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Marcy McNeal:
or their response was not about me, it may have been about the idea. Let’s go talk about that. Let’s talk about the idea and the topic. And ⁓ that takes a lot of practice, especially in family relationships, because of so much of the history, right? That we tend to bring forward with us into a business if we’re working with our family. So, yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Sure. Well, we just did a,

I just did a keynote in San Diego for an association. And when we do those, we put up on the screen, we do a survey and ask, you know, what is your number one fear of transitioning? And the number one fear, and in this case in San Diego, and it’s kind of typical that that is true, is the successor’s

ability to take it forward that the successor is not prepared. And so in the conversation of ⁓ a family going through a transition where you’ve got your transitioner, right, who likely is a parent or a generation ahead of you. ⁓ And then you’ve got yourself as the successor coming in trying to do your very best, but also you don’t know what you don’t know. You’re not prepared.

likely, especially in your transitioners eyes, that next generation’s eyes. ⁓ That some of those conversations, there’s an expectation of that generation that’s leaving, right, ultimately transitioning. And the incoming generation typically is doing everything they can to try hard. How do you navigate some of those conversations?

without taking it personally on either side, like not being that great mentor or the successor doing everything they can, but maybe not feeling like they have the right guidance, right? Because how do you deal with those kinds of things and not taking those personally?

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. You know, Elizabeth, I’m so glad you brought that up because it makes me think about one, you know, a client that you and I have both worked with that what I had, what I experienced was such a lack of clarity about on, the transitioners side of what is it that they need to see to be comfortable and confident. And so that poor successor is just in this sort of nebulous

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Mm-hmm.

Marcy McNeal:
Well, they say they’ll know it when they see it. And I was like, well, what is it? What are the measurables? And I think that’s a way that really takes it out of a personal realm, like I’ll know when you’re ready. It’s like, no, the business realm of that conversation is because I will see you do X and Y and Z. So now let’s talk about what do you need to be able to successfully do X and Y and Z instead of, well, I’ll just let you know.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

Yeah.

Marcy McNeal:
when I see it kind of thing, because it’s not fair really to either party to have it be so vague that like, just am going to keep working really hard and hopefully I’m doing the things the person is wanting to see. And so really the clarity of expectations, what is it that the transitioner needs to see to be confident and communicating that and being

transparent, even if it might be scary, because the goal is that that successor is going to achieve those things and the transition, like that’s the moment, right? That’s such a pivotal moment to be like, okay, that’s what I said I needed to see. I’m seeing it. Now, now what? Right? And we both know that that now what, because they’re ready.

moment for a transition or can be really emotionally laden because it may be that ultimate moment of, okay, I’m actually stepping back. I’m actually gonna be in the shadow. And what does that mean for the company? What does that mean for them personally? That’s a big moment. So, yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Hmm

Yes.

Yeah, it’s a big moment. then,

know, for our listeners who have been with me for a while, you know, that we think of transitioning as a journey. And so I hope in Marcy’s emotional, like in her words that you can hear, it is a moment when a transition is leaving and it also

is an exciting ⁓ thing for the successor to have achieved it. And if you can make it a journey and you can have many wins, like I’m going to give up this task, or I’m going to give up this decision, or I’m going to give up this part of my role, not the whole role, but a part of your role, it makes it so much easier to make it a journey. It’s so much easier on the family.

So much easier on the business, so much easier on the successor’s learning curve, and also the transitioners emotional well-being of getting used to letting go one piece at a time instead of the cliff.

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah. know, Elizabeth, I want to expand that a little bit because it also has an impact on the rest of the company. Because in the absence of clarity of expectations and to your point, the many whens, which there are many, ⁓ know, successors and transitioners can bring about confusion and uncertainty in the staff, in the employees, because

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Mm-hmm.

Marcy McNeal:
they don’t really know what’s going on and there could be upset, there could be, hopefully not, but miscommunications and that type of thing, which can really make the employees also feel uncertain. And ⁓ I know that that’s definitely not an intention of either a transition or a successor, but I do think that sometimes looking beyond themselves and even just the…

the two of them or however many are involved in the specific transition can help bring that conversation more into the realm of, this is broad, this is bigger than us. This has a greater impact than just the two of us or the three of us or whoever’s involved. Because that, yeah, that definitely I have seen occurs where the employees start to wonder, what’s going on here?

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. Yeah, and you do. mean, as a transition or and as a successor, your responsibility isn’t just to you, it absolutely is to others. And now without any question. So ⁓ as they navigate this,

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
let’s imagine that we’ve got a successor in a company coming in, we’ve got our transition or who wants them there. The successor is super engaged and super happy to be wandering through this journey. They’re trying to do that. We know that you’re going to end up in places where you’re going to have to have these hard conversations.

Hopefully not seeing it as a true conflict where you’re not interested in a solution, but you’re going to have these hard conversations. How do you coach someone through basically holding their ground emotionally without either becoming defensive or shutting down on either side because you don’t have a productive conversation if people become defensive or shut down. So how do you do that? How do you coach the two of them together to be able to hold their ground?

Marcy McNeal:
Yep.

Yeah. You know, I think one of the greatest tools that we all have innately as humans that can help in that type of a situation is to bring curiosity. When you ask a question instead of react or even respond, you just open up a space in the conversation that can release the tension if there’s tension.

can sort of take everyone, can have everyone sort of step back and take a breath and okay. ⁓ But asking a question and not just any question because we can definitely ask questions that are very manipulative, right? We ask a question that in the question we tell you what the answer should be. That is not a curious question, right? So asking the question of, know, along the lines of, you know, not even a question, but say more about that.

help me understand where you are looking from. I really want to understand what else can you share with me? Like really open-ended, not yes, no questions, but coming from that space of I want to understand. I may not change my recommendation or the point that I’m trying to make, but if I understand where you’re coming from, maybe we actually find some common ground that we didn’t realize because we weren’t

fully listening to each other. So that’s something I work with people and help them practice asking questions. It sounds really ridiculous and very simple, but it’s so amazing. Like you said, in a conversation where some emotion comes up, how quickly we go to reacting and responding, whether it’s defensiveness or even just shutting down because we’re upset about how they received our idea.

if you can pause and just be like, okay, I get that I’m emotional, but where do we move forward? And a question always moves it forward.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s great, a great thought. it makes me, you know, we do have our three rules of engagement that you have best of intent, you’re honest, direct, and not accusatory, and you’re playful. And I always say that if you truly can live best of intent, no matter what anybody does or says to you, ⁓

your curiosity has to come out, which then helps you to ask the question. I think we’re so taught to make a conclusion and move on, especially ⁓ if you’re a business owner, you have to make decisions, you have to see something, analyze it quickly, make a decision, move on to the next. We’re so ingrained in that, that the idea of stepping back and being curious, ⁓

It might be a little foreign to some of our listeners.

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah, you bring up a great point, Elizabeth, because if a business owner has pretty much unilaterally been able to make decisions for 30 years, shared decision-making is a whole new game. It’s a whole new behavior. It’s a whole new willingness. And it is quite foreign. And yes, it might slow things down. You will be required to… ⁓

to slow down that thought process and who else needs to be a part of this conversation. So it’s ⁓ a behavior shift on both ends because figuring out how to share that decision-making as they go along is a huge, huge piece.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

It is huge and I just kind of started laughing inside a little bit because not only, sometimes we put together, help families put together boards and the board is a place where you can teach as a transition or the successors coming in and they get exposure and ⁓ a parent recently said, know, Elizabeth, I would never hire somebody.

I would never bring somebody like my child onto the board. They’re not qualified, they’re not ready, they’re not this, they’re not that. ⁓ Just the idea of decision-making, ⁓ you’re actually making decisions and inviting people in that aren’t ready to make them. Not only you don’t have that peer who you would maybe say, yeah, they’re qualified, you’re also inviting people in to make those decisions that are not.

They’re not prepared to do that. So yeah, you’ve got a lot of learning and a lot of patience there.

Marcy McNeal:
Exactly, because where else are they going to learn? Are you going to send them to go be a member of somebody else’s board and then say when they’re, you’re ready now, you can come be on ours? I mean, it is such a gift. It is such a gift to allow the space for that learning and mentoring. ⁓ because being on a board, being an owner is so very different than being a leader or an employee.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Exactly.

Yeah.

Marcy McNeal:
It really is. You have to look at things from a completely different place. ⁓ that takes being exposed and given the opportunity to experience it and then develop those skills. So, yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, yeah.

I’ll just see if I can read this too really quick. It was a book that was given to be by somebody. And I thought this was super profound and I think it fits here. ⁓ It says that if we’re, ⁓ people who influence you are people who believe in you. One, people who influence you are people who believe in you. And then the second part of it is if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that

Success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them.

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah. Oh, that’s so applicable to families. So applicable.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
which is.

Yes, yes, that

if they don’t believe that, if they don’t have a belief that we believe in them, the ability for them to move forward is so much lower. And I think that that really fits into this conflict and ⁓ the conversation that we’re having today.

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah.

Yeah. And what an interesting thing for both transitioners and successors to wrestle with their doubts, their possible doubt about somebody believing in them or even admitting, I don’t fully believe in them yet that they can do this. Like that’s a scary thing to admit, but that could be what somebody is having as an internal conversation and it’s holding them back and it’s holding the

Elizabeth Ledoux:
yeah.

When it goes.

Marcy McNeal:
want to succeed back.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, and it goes in both directions because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the successor say, don’t think they can leave. I don’t think that they’re going to be able to do this. And then you flip that around. I don’t think this is ever going to happen. I don’t believe that they can do it. And I think we all understand that sometimes successors have a lot to learn. So do transitioners.

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah, they’ll never let me. Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
It is behavior oriented. Yeah.

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, I love that. I love that quote and that sentiment. It’s incredibly powerful. The power of feeling that someone believes in you is hugely impactful.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah, I think.

Incredible.

Yeah, I got this book. It’s called, ⁓ just for our listeners, it’s called The Greatest Thing in the World. ⁓ And it is by Henry Drummond. And it has to do with the idea of the enduring power of love. And when you walk through this work, ⁓ I think that families do have conflict. It’s a given. And… ⁓

going back to curiosity, as you said, and the concept of just loving each other for who you are is very, powerful.

Marcy McNeal:
Yeah. I think a source potential conflict, potential conflict is when an individual, either side, transition or successor, when they tie their belief in how much someone loves and appreciates them to their behavior in the business. And that’s, again, that ties right back to

an experience of growing up in a family and how you express and receive love. And then how does that get tied or connected in some way to the work in the business as if agreement is an expression of love. That’s a real dangerous place to stand.

Elizabeth Ledoux:
Yeah.

The Transition Strategists:
Gosh, Marcy, that is such a good point. And that is, you know, truly probably a whole nother podcast that hopefully we can do in the future. I would love to dive deeper into that. And, know, always our, our time goes so quickly. I like to end our podcasts with, a question of what one thing would you potentially want to leave with our users?

Marcy McNeal:
Absolutely.

The Transition Strategists:
And I’d like you to focus in a little bit on, you know, one thing that they could use to shift the energy in a tense family relationship. So what would that one thing be that we could leave them with today?

Marcy McNeal:
Absolutely. I so appreciate you asking that. our conversation today, the simplest and most immediate thing that a family member can do is to notice when they’re emotional and ask a question. That is the simplest, most immediate thing that could shift and even sort of disarm.

the other people or the other person in that relationship, in that conversation, whatever the situation may be, ⁓ we often don’t ask each other very many questions, even to inquire, well, how was that experience for you? What have you been struggling with lately? How can I make a difference for you? Like those are questions that we as human beings are rarely experience anybody asking us.

The Transition Strategists:
Wow. Those are so powerful. just sometimes, you know, we spend things up so easily and sometimes the simplest things that we have tools in our toolbox, they’re right there for us to use. And so I really appreciate you bringing that to us today. Yeah. So Marcy, thank you so much for your time today and ⁓ listeners, please take a look and listen.

Marcy McNeal:
It really opens things up.

The Transition Strategists:
to some of Marcie’s thoughts because they are so powerful. Just appreciate you.

Marcy McNeal:
Thank you, Elizabeth. It was really fun to be on and I hope we do have some more conversations about this and how it can help family relationships.

The Transition Strategists:
Absolutely.

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The Business Transition Roadmap with Elizabeth Ledoux

How do communities thrive? When businesses experience healthy growth and transition. Join CEO of The Transition Strategists, Elizabeth Ledoux as she and her guests identify what makes a successful business transition roadmap. If you know you want to transition or exit your business “one day”, today is the right day to start planning. This show will give you the roadmap.

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