Her Power in the Family

I must be a kapok tree beside you,

standing with you in the form of a tree.

Roots clasped tight underground;

leaves touching in the clouds.

Today, the role of women in the family is by no means a subordinate one. On the contrary, “her power” in the family or the family enterprise plays a decisive role in whether the enterprise can endure and whether the family can perpetuate itself.

In the vast majority of families, family and family enterprise are inseparable. We will therefore turn our lens more toward the role of women in the family enterprise, their influence, and the part they play in the face of conflict. And if we regard the family governance system as a kind of enterprise (essentially similar), then the significance of women in the family enterprise applies equally within the family itself.

Manifold Roles

At Flourishing Tree Family Office, we once put forward our Six Capitals of the Family model.

For details, see

Below we look at the important roles women play within it, capital by capital.

The self role: this is the most central and fundamental role, the axis around which all other roles turn. Recognizing “who I am,” maintaining self-awareness, persisting in continual learning, and keeping one’s relative independence within all kinds of relationships — all are part of the cognition, refinement, and growth of the self role.

The role in family relationship capital: that is, through various activities, building the emotional relationships, network-structural relationships, and cognitive relationships within the family, so as to preserve the family’s internal unity and closeness of feeling, along with care for the next generation.

The role in human capital: attending to the physical, emotional, and mental health of family members, and advancing their growth in learning ability, capacity for development, and adaptability. Particular attention is given to the education of the next generation.

The role in social capital: building the family’s external social capital, including informal political and business relationships, non-profit associational relationships, and the social relationships between the family or household and other families or households. The position of this role is like that of the family’s or household’s gatekeeper, watching over the gate of its outward relationships, guarding its channels of resources and resource exchange. Moreover, in the realm of philanthropy, women are given a fourfold role: representing themselves, representing their husbands, representing the whole family, and representing the family enterprise. This role can also help a woman move from a backstage role to a front-stage one.

The role in legacy capital: as the ancients said, observe a ruler and you know the fortune of a state; observe a person and you know their family; observe a mother and you know the virtue of her children. A woman’s role in legacy capital is especially important to the family’s next generation and to intergenerational transmission.

The role in wealth capital and structural capital: a woman’s distinctive sensitivity, steadiness, and need for security give her a natural advantage — in cognition, in attention to detail, and in patience — when it comes to the family’s safe asset allocation and the building of secure structures.

Her Power in the Family Enterprise

Because of women’s manifold roles and characteristics — loyalty, attentiveness, sensitivity to others’ needs, and the ability to resolve problems and conflicts — a distinctive leadership style is shaped in the way women lead enterprises. This is precious wealth for both family and enterprise; it has a positive influence on any enterprise, and can in particular create a potential competitive advantage for the family enterprise.

Family enterprises led by women often have these traits:

• Because of their distinctive division of labor in the household and in society, women take on many roles, and it is precisely this seasoning across roles, together with women’s characteristic tenderness of feeling, that makes it easier for a woman to play the role of “chief emotional officer.” Their presence brings a family enterprise additional resources to be well used, better continuing the enterprise’s success.
• Women taking on leadership and strategic roles is positively significant for the enterprise. On a company’s board in particular, women can broaden and enrich the board’s expertise, experience, and quality of decision-making.
• Women managers often possess a distinctive spirit of change and open-mindedness, and in managing an enterprise are more inclined to encourage individuals and teams to seek new business opportunities, identify opportunities for change, and then decide autonomously.
• The conflict women face between work and family is more acute. Women in family enterprises are still working hard to resolve role conflict, paving the way for their own development in enterprise and family alike, and refusing to be labeled as merely the family’s caretaker.

Her Power Amid Conflict

Conflict is everywhere — conflict among family members within the family, conflict between spouses, conflict between father and son in intergenerational succession. Much research shows that gender makes a difference in the handling of conflict, and that in navigating conflict and keeping a team or group developing steadily, women are more adept. This depends partly on women’s innate endowments and partly on the evolving result of the long socialization of women’s roles.

First, as to innate factors, the structure of the cerebral cortex differs between men and women: men tend toward linear thinking, women toward web-like thinking. Women therefore view things not as rigidly and formally as men, but with more flexibility and relative compromise, valuing and adopting others’ opinions, not arbitrary or autocratic — which helps women see problems systematically and more broadly. Faced with conflict, women do not cling excessively to their own views; some are even readily moved by the other side to adopt a strategy of compromise and concession. This does not mean women lose in conflict, for the outcome of a conflict has no absolute right or wrong, victory or defeat — and is it not a kind of wisdom for a woman to persuade herself while deftly averting the further escalation of conflict?

Second, there are important differences in the behavior of men and women. As to preference for competition, men enjoy competition more than women. Women generally avoid competition and its pressures, a tendency that is to some degree the result of socialization. Observe closely and you will find that being able both to observe and analyze a problem by putting oneself in another’s position and standpoint, and to sense the other’s feelings and reactions, is women’s distinctive care and kindness — using “her power” to care for and help others and thereby win recognition and support.

The types of conflict in a family enterprise are many and complex, and in the face of them women often play an exceedingly important role. The most prominent is that of “chief emotional officer.” The emotional bond is one of the very evident features of a family enterprise, one that ordinary enterprises do not possess; it is greatly bound up with the survival and development of the family enterprise, and also has a great bearing on its succession and the distribution of power.

Women’s advantage in communication is likewise displayed to excellent effect in the management of family enterprises. Facing internal conflict, for instance, women show a greater willingness and ability to listen than men, along with ample patience and forbearance. Faced with complex family relationships and their conflicts, women are more willing to step forward to mediate, running in every direction to clean up the mess. When a family enterprise faces difficulty and hard problems, women can persevere and are good at gathering momentum — like flowing water, able to store energy in the low places — and are often the family members’ spiritual pillar.

Conclusion

A family enterprise headed by a woman entrepreneur (whether founder or successor) differs greatly in temperament from a male-dominated one. What “her power” shapes is a warmer “enterprise emotional intelligence,” one in which the law of feeling reigns supreme. By enterprise emotional intelligence we mean the ability of an enterprise, as a whole, to perceive, regulate, and manage emotion and feeling. Through the spiritual bearing of its staff, it comprehensively reflects the degree of harmony in relationships among members at different levels of the enterprise, as well as the enterprise’s ability to coordinate its relationships with other organizations and the public.

But on the other hand, women as managers also face many challenges: the older generation may worry about the outflow of family resources and wealth, about an imbalance or conflict between career and family, and about women often lacking, in decision-making, qualities such as forcefulness, decisiveness, and authority — leading to a crisis in establishing authority. The elders of a family enterprise therefore need more careful arrangement and cultivation to ensure a woman successor’s smooth handover and succession.

Although women can inherit a family enterprise, they still play multiple roles in enterprise and family, and frequently bear the main responsibility of caring for children and household. Some women still face heavy challenges: on one hand, to prove the “legitimacy” of holding a leadership role, and on the other, to prove that they possess the boldness to manage and lead an enterprise to success.

In short, a family’s growth and flourishing need the strength of the men in the family, and also the strength of the women; only when family members are wholly of one mind can there be abundant vitality.

A Short Poem

Finally, I would like to close this article with Shu Ting’s “To the Oak Tree,” offering it to the women in the family who are worthy of respect, of appreciation, and of love.

If I love you —

I will never be a climbing trumpet vine,

flaunting myself on your high branches;

if I love you —

I will never be a lovesick bird,

repeating a monotonous song for your green shade;

nor be only a spring,

bringing cool comfort all year long;

nor be only a lofty peak,

adding to your height, setting off your majesty.

Not even sunlight.

Not even spring rain.

No, none of these is enough!

I must be a kapok tree beside you,

standing with you in the form of a tree.

Roots clasped tight underground;

leaves touching in the clouds.

With every gust of wind

we greet each other,

but no one

understands our words.

You have your copper branches and iron trunk,

like knives, like swords, like halberds too;

I have my red, ample blossoms,

like a heavy sigh,

and like a valiant torch.

We share cold waves, wind and thunder, and thunderbolts;

we share mist, drifting haze, and rainbows.

As if forever apart,

yet leaning on each other for life.

This is great love,

and here lies its constancy:

love —

not only your mighty frame,

but also the place where you stand,

the earth beneath your feet.