In an effort to gain justice while ignoring forgiveness, family members in family businesses suing each other is not uncommon. In the last couple of years, I’ve encountered several situations in which family members sue each other to seek justice. Never mind that justice is never enough. Forgiveness needs to be part of the picture if a family business is going to survive with the family intact.

Recently, a rather smart, beautiful young lady contacted me about her fiancé’s family business. Her future father-in-law – who owns the business – is overbearing and treats his son – her fiancé – poorly, failing to compensate him and not following through on promises to relinquish control. Even though the father has gifted significant numbers of non-voting shares to his three sons and one daughter, the other three siblings have long since left the business because they can’t get along with their dad. 

In most family owned businesses – whether Christian or not – there is usually an enmeshment of roles for family members who work in the business. They confuse the four roles that anyone can play in a corporation: