The Surprising Connection Between Family Dynamics and Leadership Conflict
You’re in another executive team meeting. The CFO is silent, again, even though everyone knows he disagrees with the proposed strategy.
The COO is getting increasingly aggressive in her pushback. And you’re managing the tension in the room the same way you always do…crack a joke to ease the tension.
Most leaders don’t realize → the way you handle conflict today was largely shaped by how conflict was handled in your childhood home.
The Workplace Family Factor®
After years in private practice as a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist working with families, then transitioning to coaching senior leaders, I noticed something striking.
The same dysfunctional patterns I saw in family systems were playing out in boardrooms and leadership teams across organizations.
The executive who avoids difficult conversations? Often grew up in a home where conflict was explosive, so they learned to keep the peace at all costs.
The leader whose feedback lands like a personal attack? Likely experienced criticism without context or care in their upbringing.
That team member who won’t speak up even when they have valuable input? Probably learned early on that their voice didn’t matter or wasn’t safe to speak up.
This is what I call the Workplace Family Factor®, and it’s running your team dynamics whether you realize it or not.
Why This Matters More Than You Think
When leadership teams don’t address how their family patterns show up at work, dysfunction doesn’t just persist, they multiply.
Just like families that refuse outside input, leadership teams that won’t examine their patterns become increasingly divisive and lose momentum.
On the surface, people may be smiling, but underneath, unhealthy patterns are destroying communication, stifling innovation, and limiting growth.
Did you know – U.S. employees spend 2+ hours per week dealing with conflict, that’s $359 billion in paid hours annually.
But the bigger cost is the talented people who leave because they can’t work in your team’s dysfunction anymore.
Three Behaviors That Transform Leadership Teams
The healthiest leaders I’ve worked with share three critical behaviors.
- They ask for help before the crisis hits. Asking for outside perspective isn’t weakness, it’s strategic leadership. The most effective executives bring in coaches, consultants, or trusted advisors before patterns calcify into bigger problems. They understand that when you’re inside the system, you can’t see what you’re in.
- They address the tension in the room. Instead of tiptoeing around difficult dynamics, they name them directly and without blame. “I notice we tend to shut down when discussing budget issues. What’s happening for us here?” This skill, being comfortable with discomfort, can be learned. It starts with addressing the behavior, not attacking the person.
- They’re genuinely curious about what they can’t see. The leaders who transform their teams actively seek input that challenges their assumptions. They ask, “What am I missing?” and actually listen to the answer. This humility ignites creativity, improves problem-solving, and reveals blind spots that keep teams stuck.
What Changes When You Connect the Dots
Understanding your Workplace Family Factor® is about recognizing the unconscious patterns you’re bringing into your leadership, and making conscious choices to change them.
The question isn’t whether your family got into your office. They already did.
The question is: what are you going to do about it?
Ready to identify how your family patterns are showing up in your leadership? Take the Workplace Family Factor® Assessment today!
About the author
Bonnie Artman Fox, MS, LMFT works with executive leaders who want to gain self-awareness about the impact of their words and actions and up-level their interpersonal skills.
Drawing from decades as a psychiatric nurse and licensed family therapist, Bonnie brings a unique perspective to equip executive leaders with the roadmap to emotional intelligence that brings teams together.
Bonnie’s leadership Turnaround coaching program has an 82% success rate in guiding leaders to replace abrasive behavior with tact, empathy, and consideration of others. The end result is a happy, healthy, and profitable workplace…sooner vs. later.