Transitional Leadership of Advisors as a Facilitator of Successors’ Leadership Construction

Abstract

Succession literature addressed factors affecting the development of successors’ leadership skills. Yet the role professional advisors play in this process is not well understood. This study contrasts the detailed descriptions of four advisor-directed leadership development processes, to suggest a grounded theory of how advisors can facilitate the construction of successors’ leadership. Adopting an insider–outsider approach to the collection and analysis of ethnographic data, the study revealed that the assumption of a transitional leadership role by advisors—an interim leadership held by the advisor while supporting the successor’s leadership development—was critical to moving the succession process forward.

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Carlo Salvato and Guido Corbetta
Transitional Leadership of Advisors as a Facilitator of Successors' Leadership Construction
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Article
Although one of the most central problems faced by
family-owned businesses is developing an ability to
ensure competent family leadership across generations
(Lansberg, 2007; Le Breton-Miller, Miller, & Steier,
2004), there has been limited attention toward develop-
ing a systematic understanding of how successors’ lead-
ership is best nurtured and developed. Focus in the
literature on succession has been primarily on develop-
ing successors’ business knowledge and technical skills,
typically through the acquisition of professional experi-
ence outside the family firm, or through on-the-job
training (Sardeshmukh & Corbett, 2011; Stewart & Hitt,
2012; Venter, Boshoff, & Maas, 2005). In addition, the
development of successors’ leadership has been primar-
ily interpreted as resulting more from incumbents letting
go and transferring their power and roles, than from suc-
cessors developing their legitimacy within the family
and the firm and constructing their own leadership pro-
file (Cadieux, 2007; Chlosta, Patzelt, Klein, & Dormann,
2012; De Massis, Chua, & Chrisman, 2008). As a result,
we currently have a limited and relatively narrow under-
standing of how successors develop and establish their
leadership within the complex web of relationships
characterizing a family firm, including relationships
with important actors external to both the controlling
family and the family firm.
Recently, theorists have begun to conceptualize lead-
ership as a broad process, involving multiple individuals
engaged in activities of interpersonal and mutual influ-
ence embedded within a collective such as the organiza-
tion (DeRue & Ashford, 2010). Therefore, understanding
how an individual’s leadership is arrived at requires
integrating across three levels: individual, relational,
and collective. Leadership development and the con-
struction of a leadership profile are hence increasingly
seen as resulting from a web of complex relationships
(Kouzes & Posner, 2003).
Within this richer framework, the role played by
outside, nonfamily professionals is essential in devel-
oping a fully blown understanding of how successors
develop and establish their leadership. The limited lit-
erature on supporting next-generation leaders in family
490796FBRXXX10.1177/0894486513490796Family Business ReviewSalvato and Corbetta
research-article2013
1Bocconi University - CRIOS Research Center, Milan, Italy
Corresponding Author:
Carlo Salvato, Department of Management and Technology, Bocconi
University, Via Röntgen 1, Milan, 20136, Italy.
Email: carlo.salvato@unibocconi.it
Transitional Leadership of Advisors as
a Facilitator of Successors’ Leadership
Construction
Carlo Salvato1 and Guido Corbetta1
Abstract
Succession literature addressed factors affecting the development of successors’ leadership skills. Yet the role
professional advisors play in this process is not well understood. This study contrasts the detailed descriptions of
four advisor-directed leadership development processes, to suggest a grounded theory of how advisors can facilitate
the construction of successors’ leadership. Adopting an insider–outsider approach to the collection and analysis of
ethnographic data, the study revealed that the assumption of a transitional leadership role by advisors—an interim
leadership held by the advisor while supporting the successor’s leadership development—was critical to moving the
succession process forward.
Keywords
advisors, coaching, consulting, mentoring, transitional leadership

236 Family Business Review 26(3)
firms highlights the role of either senior family mem-
bers, or senior nonfamily managers in mentoring suc-
cessors (Boyd, Upton, & Wircenski, 1999; Cater &
Justis, 2009). In contrast, until recently leadership
coaching professionals were almost totally unaware of
the features differentiating between family firms and
other businesses (Strike, 2012). Traditional leadership
coaching models were hence proposed to address the
needs of family firms, without incorporating the pres-
ence of multiple systems and resulting diverse chal-
lenges (Shams & Lane, 2011). In this study, we hence
address the research question of how advisors affect
the knowledge, relational, and social processes through
which successors develop a leadership profile and
skills.
Given the unsatisfactory outcomes that may result
from partial approaches to succession and leadership
development (Mitchell, Morse, & Sharma, 2003), in
this study we propose a grounded model of advisor-
directed successors’ leadership development. We
delimit our analysis by focusing on support provided
by professional advisors to those next-generation
members who were already singled-out by at least
some members of the controlling family as potentially
suitable to cover leading management (CEO) or gov-
ernance (chairman or board director) positions within
the family firm. We do so by means of four compara-
tive case studies of leadership development processes
characterized by different levels of leadership
attainment.
The outcome of the analysis is a process model of
advisor-supported leadership development offering both
theoretical and practical insights into this highly rele-
vant advisory role. In particular, our data reveal that
advisors may offer a significant contribution to the
development of a successor’s leadership by taking on a
transitional leadership role. This role—which is a novel
addition to both the leadership and succession litera-
tures—implies the development of an interim shared
leadership involving the incumbent leader, the succes-
sor, and the advisor. The transitional leadership role
assumed by the advisor supports the successor in his or
her individual internalization of leadership skills, pro-
vides relational recognition to the successor’s leader-
ship, and facilitates the collective endorsement of the
successor’s leadership by members of the controlling
family and by nonfamily employees. The concept of
transitional leadership that emerged from this study
offers theoretical contributions to both the family
business and organizational leadership literatures, along
with important managerial implications.
Theoretical Background
Ensuring competent family leadership across genera-
tions is one of the main concerns that family firms
face. Leadership transfer in family firms is difficult
because of the usually limited pool of talented indi-
viduals on which even large controlling families can
draw, and to the complex social ties and related emo-
tional factors characterizing relationships within, and
also outside, the controlling family (Le Breton-Miller
et al., 2004). Existing family business literature has
tended to downplay this complexity by envisioning
succession as transfer of the leadership role from the
incumbent leader to a next-generation member. In
contrast, recent literature on leadership offers a more
nuanced view of succession as a social process through
which leadership is gradually constructed through the
contribution of a broad group of actors within and out-
side the organization. We separately discuss these two
approaches highlighting the role that external actors,
such as advisors, play in the construction of succes-
sors’ leadership.
Succession as Leadership Role Transfer in the
Family Business Literature
Within current family business literature, the succession
process is often interpreted as the set of actions, events,
and organizational mechanisms by which leadership,
ownership, and knowledge are transferred (Cater &
Justis, 2009). This view limits succession to the transfer
of a set of tangible and intangible assets, including the
leadership role, from the incumbent generation to the
next. The nuanced and complex social interactions
involving not only the incumbent leader and the chosen
successor but also all family and nonfamily members,
are hence often overlooked.
Succession in family firms is often interpreted as the
replacement of the founder or the incumbent manage-
ment with a member of the next generation of the con-
trolling family (De Massis et al., 2008). An established
approach describes succession as a mutual role adjust-
ment between the members of the incumbent and those
of successor generations (Handler, 1990). Therefore,
development of the successor is modeled as a series of
steps or milestones (Cater & Justis, 2009) through which

Salvato and Corbetta 237
formal power, ownership, and business knowledge are
transferred from the incumbent to the next-generation
leader.
These steps are premised on a strong commitment by
the successor to become a successful leader (Barach &
Gantisky, 1995), hence assuming that leadership is some-
thing that is nearly automatically and uneventfully devel-
oped by the successor, by virtue of his or her position
within the controlling family. On entering the family
business, the successor gradually learns about the pro-
cesses and people involved. He or she then moves into a
lower management position and gradually reaches the
upper echelons after winning the approval of the incum-
bent generation. Finally, full ownership and decision
power are transferred to the successor (Dyck, Mauws,
Starke, & Mischke, 2002). Although this focus on leader-
ship and ownership transfer between the incumbent and
the next generation captures an essential dimension of all
succession processes, it falls short of describing how
leadership is developed both in the mind of the next-gen-
eration leader, and in those of his or her followers, includ-
ing former leaders of the senior generation. In particular,
focusing mainly on the dyadic transfer between the
incumbent management and next-generation leaders
hampers an understanding of the subtle processes through
which a large number of actors, including external advi-
sors, contribute to the creation of a leadership that is
accepted by all actors involved.
From Leadership Role Transfer to the
Leadership Construction Process
Addressing succession as transfer of the leadership role
has left a number of important issues unresolved.
Transfer of a formal position from the incumbent to the
successor clearly conveys some meaning with respect to
leadership. However, it does not explain why some suc-
cessors are not seen as leaders even after the formal
transfer of ownership and decision power, or why some
former incumbents are still seen as leaders despite hav-
ing transferred their “leader-like” positions (Cater &
Justis, 2009; De Massis et al., 2008; Le Breton-Miller
et al., 2004).
Recently, scholars have developed an agreement
about the fact that leadership is a mutual influence
process independent of any formal role or hierarchi-
cal structure and often diffused among the members
of an organization (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007;
DeRue & Ashford, 2010). If leadership is a state of
being that organizational actors can take on irrespec-
tive of their formal role or position within an organi-
zation, and if it does not simply result from one’s
position in an institutionalized hierarchy, the question
of how leadership and leader–follower relationships
develop in family firms becomes fundamental. A
compelling answer to this question was recently
offered within organizational theory through frame-
works that explain the development of a leadership
relationship—versus static leadership roles—com-
posed of reciprocal and mutually reinforcing identi-
ties of organizational agents who see themselves as
either leaders or followers. This relationship is
endorsed and reinforced within a broader context that
includes external actors, and is dynamic over time
(DeRue & Ashford, 2010).
Although these theories were not developed to tar-
get the specific case of leadership succession in family
firms, they provide important insights. A leadership
role is constructed along three levels: individual, rela-
tional, and collective (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). First,
through individual internalization, an individual (e.g.,
a next-generation successor) comes to incorporate the
leader role as part of his or her self-concept. This is not
simply an intraindividual cognitive assessment, but the
result of specific social interactions (DeRue, Ashford,
& Cotton, 2009). Second, the leader role internalized
by the individual must be strengthened by relational
recognition, which means that somebody else within
the organization recognizes the individual as a leader
and takes on a reciprocal follower position. Finally,
leader role is strengthened by collective endorsement,
which implies being seen as a leader by the broader
social environment. This endorsement may either come
from other individuals (e.g., a member of the senior
generation or a nonfamily manager addressing a next-
generation member as the leader) or the social context
(e.g., influential suppliers or customers recognizing the
leadership role of a next-generation member; Brewer
& Gardner, 1996; DeRue & Ashford, 2010).
Understanding how the leadership construction pro-
cess unfolds is important since individual identities as
next-generation leader, next-generation follower, or for-
mer-incumbent follower are significant drivers of these
individuals’ thought, affect, motivation, and action (Day
& Harrison, 2007). In particular, a deeper understanding
of how leadership is constructed in next-generation
members would help explain and predict whether indi-
viduals will actually relate with each other as leaders,

238 Family Business Review 26(3)
followers, and former leaders turned into followers. For
instance, the development of a strong leadership by the
successor implies that there is greater acceptance of the
right of the person constructed as next-generation leader
to exert influence over the other family business mem-
bers, including former senior-generation incumbents. On
the opposite, when a strong leadership is not constructed,
we expect increased conflicts and tensions in the rela-
tionship between the new leader and followers from both
the previous and the next generation.
As the process of leadership construction is inher-
ently social, it involves not only those members of the
controlling family who are directly implicated in the
succession process but also all family and nonfamily
members of the firm, and a number of key external con-
stituents. In this article, focus is on the advisors’ role in
the three stages of a leader’s role construction: individ-
ual internalization, relational recognition, and collective
endorsement.
Method
Empirical Setting and Research Design
The empirical setting we selected for this study included
four medium-to-large family firms. To minimize exter-
nal variation beyond the phenomenon of interest
(Eisenhardt, 1989), we selected four cases that were
homogeneous under three theoretically relevant dimen-
sions. First, all four family firms were headquartered
within the same geographical area of one of the main
European countries, due to the potentially relevant role
of cultural issues in affecting leadership development,
succession issues, and attitude toward external advisors
(Gaines, Gurung, Lin, & Pouli, 2006). Second, we built
a non–gender-neutral sample—all advisors and succes-
sors were males—because of the relevant role that gen-
der plays in shaping succession and leadership attainment
and outcomes (Ryan & Haslam, 2007; Vera & Dean,
2005). Third, we only selected leadership-development
processes aimed at growing successors into top manage-
rial (CEO) or governance (chairman) positions, as pro-
cesses aimed at developing leaders in middle-management
or nonmanagerial positions differ substantially in terms
of both content and flow (Boyd et al., 1999).
Besides these forced similarities, the four family firms
were active in four different industries (energy, fashion,
molding, and textile), and were characterized by different
features in terms of family structure and relationships,
previous job experience of the successor within and out-
side the family firm, duration of the advising process, and
key critical incidents observed. In particular, Firm 1 was
listed on the stock exchange and had a majority of nonfa-
mily managers and directors, Firms 2 and 3 were entirely
owned by a single family branch, whereas Firm 4 was
entirely owned by three branches of the same family. In
addition, key management positions were covered by
family members in Firms 2 to 4, but the board of directors
of Firm 4 had a significant presence of independent, non-
family directors. Table 1 provides a structured compari-
son of the four cases under relevant dimensions.
Two of the firms (1 and 4 in Table 1) were selected
among those in which the second author had personally
advised a successor-generation member. In these two
cases, the second author played the role of the partici-
pant insider and was hence interviewed by the first
author as an informant. The other two cases were
selected through the first author’s personal network to
maximize similarity and variance along selected vari-
ables. We hence adopted a discovery-oriented interpre-
tive approach (Locke, 2011), emphasizing the “insider”
perspective of informants and of the second author who
experienced events, while accounting for the first
author’s “outsider” perspective of researchers attempt-
ing to describe the experienced phenomena at a theo-
retical level (Bartunek & Louis, 1996). The strength of
this explicit choice of methodological approach to case
selection and to data collection and analysis results
from the second author’s “insider” involvement in the
process. This experience was invaluable in capturing
subtle, often confidential relational and psychological
issues informing the leadership development process,
which could only be indirectly determined in the other
two cases.
As it is apparent by contrasting cases in Table 1, the
four firms were selected to form two matched pairs.
Case 1 and Case 2 provide evidence of accomplished
leadership in governance and management roles, respec-
tively. In contrast, Case 3 and Case 4 provide evidence
of leadership positions that are still developing, and
even challenged in the latter case. This choice allowed
us to contrast the four cases along the criterion vari-
able—leadership development.
Data Collection
Before starting primary data gathering, secondary data
were collected (books, company and industry reports,

Salvato and Corbetta 239
newspaper clips, company websites) to familiarize
with the company history and activities through the
development of an extensive case report for each firm.
However, the key data source was represented by
extensive ethnographic interviews (Spradley, 1979)
aimed at capturing and contrasting the direct experi-
ence of the three key actors involved in each leader-
ship development process: the advisor (in the
remainder of the article indicated as Advisor or ADV),
the successor-generation member (Junior or JUN),
Junior’s father—or uncle, in the case in which the
father was deceased (Senior or SEN). These retrospec-
tive interviews allowed us to cover the entire duration
of the Advisor–Junior interaction. At the time inter-
views were performed, Advisors in Cases 1, 3, and 4
still had frequent contacts with Juniors, although in
Cases 1 and 3 active coaching had just been inter-
rupted and Junior’s leadership position established. A
synthetic description of the key informants is reported
in Table 2.
Ethnographic interviews were all performed by the
first author, ranged between 2 and 5 hours, and were
recorded and transcribed verbatim. Besides the notes
taken during the interviews, an expanded account was
made within 24 hours, to fill in details and to recall things
that were not recorded on the spot. The expanded account
Table 1. Cross-Case Analysis.
1. Energya2. Fashion 3. Molding 4. Textilea
Selection variable: Final
leadership position
Accomplished/
governance role
Accomplished/CEO Developing/
established
Developing/challenged
Next-generation member
already recognized as
possible leader
YES, governance role YES, management role YES, management role YES, management role
Intrafamily relationships Some conflicts Harmonious
relationships
Harmonious
relationships
Some conflicts
Next-generation member
previous outside work
experience
YES (2 years financial
firm)
NO YES (2 years major
consulting firm)
NO
Next-generation member
career progress in the
family firm
• Project
coordinator
• Project developer
• CEO assistant
Product manager
• Business developer
Division head
• MIS manager
• Operations manager
• Business developer
• CEO
• Board member;
chairman assistant
for governance
relationships
Advisor–Junior age
difference
+21 years +31 years +22 years +10 years
Duration of close Advisor/
Junior relationship
12 years 3 years 4 years 2 years
Role of Senior in relation
to Junior
• Uncle • Father • Father • Father
• Chairman • Chairman • Retired • Retired
Other family members
followed by same Advisor
NO NO 2 2
Possible family contenders
of the leadership role
NO 1 sibling 2 siblings 1 sibling
Episodic processes
observed
Hiring new CEO New product
introduction
• Corporate
restructuring
• Conflict with cousin
• Specific board meetings
• Two acquisitions
a.The Advisor in these two cases was the second author, hence providing an insider’s perspective to the analysis of processes characterized
by both types of leadership outcomes (i.e., accomplished and developing).

240 Family Business Review 26(3)
took the form of an introspective record of field work,
which enabled the interviewer to take into account per-
sonal biases and feelings, and to understand their influ-
ence on the research (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995).
Overall, we analyzed 242 pages of interview transcripts
and 58 pages of interview notes and expanded accounts.
The interview guide (reported in the appendix)
included questions that could be compared across the
three types of informants (ADV, JUN, SEN). A set of
questions were hence identical, besides obvious adap-
tations, across informants. Interviews followed an epi-
sodic approach by focusing on specific mentoring
episodes (Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermid, 2005;
Ragins, 2012). Following an episodic approach in eth-
nographic interviewing implied that after a number of
background and preliminary questions, the interview
revolved around the identification and illustration of a
specific behavioral episode, that is, a natural unit of
activity that has recognizable thematic coherence, and
that occurs at a specific point in time (Beal et al., 2005;
Ragins, 2012). Behavioral episodes in leadership
coaching are usually nested within task and project
episodes (Allen & Poteet, 2011). For instance, a behav-
ioral episode we observed within the CEO task was a
specific meeting of the board of directors, whereas a
behavioral episode within an acquisition project was a
specific meeting with management of the target
company.
In line with techniques for ethnographic interviewing
(Spradley, 1979), different types of questions were
asked, such as “grand tour” questions (e.g., “Can you
describe a specific episode in which you provided
important support to [Name]?”), example questions
(e.g., “Did you receive systematic support from other
persons during the advising period? In what form? Can
you provide a specific example?”), structural questions
(e.g., “Can you describe all kinds of situations in which
you have supported [Name]?”), and verification ques-
tions (e.g., “Can you think of other situations in which
you provided support to [Name]?”).
Table 2. Informants and Family Structure.
Firm Generation No. of family branches Informants (current position) Other active family members
1/Energy IV 3 Senior 1: Uncle (third generation,
chairman)
Uncle
Junior 1: Age 36 years, board
member; assistant of the chairman for
governance issues
Cousin
Advisor 1: Vice-chairman of the board.
Background: academic (strategy and
family business)
2/Fashion II 1 Senior 2: Father (founder, chairman) Father
Junior 2: Age 48 years; CEO Younger sister
Advisor 2: Consultant/coach.
Background: strategy and accounting
consultant
Cousin
3/Molding II 1 Senior 3: Father (founder, chairman) Father
Junior 3: Age 29 years, division head,
selected future CEO
2 Older sisters
Advisor 3: Consultant, coach, informal
board member. Background: former
entrepreneur
1 In-law
4/Textile III 1 Senior 4: Father (second generation,
board member, consultant)
Father
Junior 4: Age 44 years, CEO 1 Uncle/1 aunt
Advisor 4: Chairman of the board.
Background: academic (strategy and
family business)
4 younger cousins

Salvato and Corbetta 241
Data Analysis
As is typical in inductive multicase research (Miles &
Huberman, 1994), we analyzed the data by first building
individual case study summaries, synthesizing and com-
paring the interview transcripts and our field notes col-
lected after the interviews. Throughout this process, the
second author acted as a critical reviewer and interroga-
tor of the first author to ensure the internal and external
validity of the case summaries and emerging findings.
When analyzing the cases, we first compared matched-
pair polar types (e.g., Cases 1 and 2 characterized by
accomplished leadership and Cases 3 and 4 character-
ized by developing—established or challenged—leader-
ship; Cases 1 and 4 advised by the second author and
Cases 2 and 3 advised by two different professional
advisors). Subsequently, we used a replication logic to
see whether the rest of the cases confirmed or refuted the
emerging findings (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).
Extant literature was enfolded as insights were devel-
oped (Eisenhardt, 1989). We looked for similar con-
structs emerging from the data, using tables and charts
to facilitate comparison (Miles & Huberman, 1994). We
cycled through multiple readings of the data to develop
a data structure. As such, we engaged in iterative coding
(facilitated by the QSR-NVivo 8 qualitative software
package) of recurring first-order categories, and crafting
of emerging second-order categories and aggregate
dimensions that helped us identify the unique features of
the four advisors’ contribution to the development of
successors’ leadership.
Figure 1 illustrates the structure and ordering of the
data: from specific first-order categories used by infor-
mants, to more general researcher-induced second-order
themes, and to aggregate second-order dimensions.
Because of their direct relevance to next-generation
leadership outcomes, the second-order themes and
aggregate dimensions served as the basis for the subse-
quent grounded theory of advisor-directed leadership
development in family firms.
Figure 1 is not a causal or dynamic model. Rather, it
is a representation of the core concepts and their rela-
tionships that served as the basis for the emergent theo-
retical framework and a full grounded theory model.
Table 3 illustrates representative quotations and events
that substantiate the second-order themes we identified.
Together, these sequential and recurrent themes led to
the development of the grounded process model articu-
lated in the next section.
Findings
The iterative process between data analysis, literature
enfolding, and writing resulted in a grounded model of
Junior’s leadership construction. Within this model, the
Advisor plays a central role in balancing and harmoniz-
ing the contrasting forces affecting Junior’s leadership
construction process. On one side (Dimension 1 in
Figure 1), the Advisor performs activities aimed at
building the successor’s leadership role and at granting
recognition to his or her leadership. On the other
(Dimension 2 in Figure 1), next-generation members—
other than the selected successor, that is, siblings and
cousins—pose threats to the successor’s role by both
questioning his or her leadership, and by claiming a
leadership role for themselves. By taking on a transi-
tional leadership role (Dimension 3 in Figure 1), shared
with incumbent senior-generation leaders and the suc-
cessor, the Advisor offers a role model to the Junior suc-
cessor, endorses Junior’s leadership, and eventually
withdraws from the transitional leadership role to fur-
ther confirm Junior’s accomplished leadership.
In this section we separately illustrate selective evi-
dence of each dimension of the grounded model (Figure
2), displaying the emergence of Juniors’ clear and
accepted leadership. To ground our findings in infor-
mants’ perspectives, besides evidence provided in
Figure 1 and Table 3, we include additional representa-
tive quotes from our ethnographic interviews.
Dimension 1: Advisor’s Support to Junior’s
Leadership Construction
Advisors contributed to building the successor’s leader-
ship role with two complementary activities. First,
Advisors promoted, cultivated, and strengthened leader-
ship abilities in Juniors (1a. Role building). Second, they
performed activities aimed at making the successor’s
leadership role explicit by claiming a role of followers
for themselves and the other junior-generation members
(1b. Leadership granting).
1a. Role Building A key role of Advisors in the leadership
development processes we observed consisted in elicit-
ing the personal skills and abilities that were latent in
successor-generation members. We labeled this task as
role building. Role building did not imply direct involve-
ment of the Advisor in any organizational task. On the
opposite, these activities were often meant to prompt

242 Family Business Review 26(3)
Junior to confront the hard facts and to learn directly
from experience, hence eliciting his innate or learnt skills
and abilities. As one advisor aptly phrased it,
If I were to explain it with a chemical analogy, I would
define [my role] as “catalyzing”. A catalyst is an element
that starts a chemical reaction without itself being involved
in it. (ADV.3)
In the four cases we analyzed, role building consisted
in helping Juniors develop their own problem-solving
skills. Role-building interactions implied joint issue
analysis by the Advisor and the Junior, followed by the
Advisor prompting the Junior to develop alternative
solutions and terminating with feedback from the
Advisor. In one of the instances we observed (Case 4),
the Advisor prompted Junior to autonomously develop
alternative ways to evaluate an acquisition target, pro-
viding broad guidelines on how the task should be per-
formed. As an alternative, the Advisor said, “we could
do it together.” Junior felt challenged by the Advisor and
decided to proceed autonomously. He sketched a num-
ber of alternatives and checked their validity through his
network of friends active in investment banking. He
later illustrated the two best alternatives to the Advisor,
which were checked and successfully submitted to the
board of directors. As the Advisor remarked at the end of
the process,
We could have done it together, it was not difficult, but he
would not have learnt. I didn’t give him a fish; I taught him
to fish. (ADV.3)
3a. Role Modeling
•SEN: We gradually transferred [Junior] increasing decision autonomy
•SEN: I always support [Junior’s] decisions at board meetings, even when I’m
not fully convinced
•ADV: A few weeks ago [Senior] told me: I think [Junior] is ready
•SEN: What I admire most is when I see [Advisor] in action
•JUN: I learn a lot when I see [Advisor] interacting with my cousin or directors
•ADV: I always have a short debrief with [Junior] after each board or strategic
meeting; I try to explain him the rationale of what I said or did
•ADV: I helped [Junior] bring out things he had studied, but never applied
•ADV: The strategy you [Junior] devised has a clear logic to me; you should
now try to convince seniors
•SEN: I started a dialogue with [Junior] to understand what he could do
•JUN: [Advisor] had separate meetings with troublemakers to convince them
about the choice of [Junior] as the next leader
•ADV: None of you [cousins] has [Junior’s] commitment and leadership skills
•ADV: Sometimes I see [Junior] … I see my role not as a coach but … paternal
•ADV: I felt I had a role in helping a young man finding his calling
•SEN: [Advisor] autonomously withdrew from his coaching task; he said
[Junior] didn’t need it anymore
•ADV: My [advisor] role was not needed anymore
•ADV: I don’t want to be paid for doing nothing; I withdrew the contract
3b. Surrogate
Leadership Endorsing
3c. Task Withdrawing
1a. Role Building
•JUN: My uncle says I can only deal with technical and production issues
•SEN: [Junior’s] cousins are convinced that he’s not a charismatic leader
•SEN: [Junior’s] cousins thought [Advisor’s] prime task was to be Chairman of
the Board, but he should not be also [Junior’s] leadership coach
2nd Order Themes1st Order Data Aggregate 2nd Order
Dimensions
2a. Role
Questioning
1b. Leadership Granting
2b. Leadership
Claiming
2. Threats
to Junior’s Leadership
Construction
1. Support
to Junior’s Leadership
Construction
3. Advisor’s
Transitional
Leadership
•SEN: My brother is convinced his son should have been the next leader
•SEN: My other son would have been a better CEO than [Junior]
•JUN: My cousin has always claimed he would be a better CEO than me
Figure 1. Data structure.

Salvato and Corbetta 243
Role building often included different possible dimen-
sions of the focal problem: Junior’s knowledge and skills, his
career and life development, interpersonal relationships with
Advisor and with family and nonfamily members. All advi-
sors we interviewed were quite systematic in covering all
possible dimensions in each interaction with the successor:
Table 3. Additional Representative Data Supporting Each Second-Order Theme.a
Second-order themes Representative first-order data
1a. Role building • JUN.1. In the discussions we had . . . I am the kind of person who changes his mind, because I need to utter
my ideas, and I realize whether they are right or wrong only when I illustrate them. And I must say that my
discussions with [Advisor] have always been very useful from a methodological standpoint in developing my
autonomous ability to analyze issues.
• ADV.3. Well, if your intention is, like in my case, to mix some coaching and some “paternal” approach,
there’s only one available approach: we look, we see, we think: Are we sure about this step? What did you
understand? Let’s contrast it with some other different situation you faced.
• ADV.3. Personally, I have always interpreted my role as some kind of accompaniment. We walk together, I
walk with [Junior] to different destinations; it does not substitute an ability or a skill.
• ADV.4. Coaching and personal development are the same thing to me.
1b. Leadership granting • SEN.1. [Junior] is the Chairman’s assistant for governance issues: he has a vital role in the company.
• ADV.3. [Junior’s] systematical relationships with his father within the firm provide useful support in performing
my coaching role.
• SEN.3. As a retired Chairman I spend several hours in the company every day; I talk to people, and I try to
reinforce [Junior’s] decisions, even when I’m not entirely convinced
2a. Role questioning • JUN.1. First [Advisor] has never appreciated my efforts at solving conflicts by myself, in particular when my
leadership is questioned.
• JUN.2. My sister did not talk to [Senior] for some time, after the decision that I would be the new CEO.
• JUN.4. Sometimes family members fail to collaborate and to recognize my leadership role . . . this is often due
to jealousy, sometimes revenge, or for futile reasons.
2b. Leadership claiming • JUN.3. My sisters keeps reminding me that they are older than me and have more experience in the business.
• SEN.1. Sometimes our most senior non-family managers or independent directors claim levels of decision
power that conflict with [Junior’s] leadership role.
• JUN.4. My cousin claims that the marketing function he’s heading is way more relevant to the firm than the
production operations I was heading before becoming CEO; he clearly believes he would have been a better
CEO.
3a. Role modeling • JUN.2. The Board meetings is when I see him in action.
• JUN.4. I recorded in my mind everything he does; I learn a lot: the way he manages board meetings, the way
he talks . . .
• SEN.4. [Advisor] has a positive influence on him. For instance, last Monday we had a chaotic board meeting.
[Advisor] clarified everything . . . This is a priceless example.
• JUN.4. When I see [Advisor] in action . . . I keep my eyes wide open!
3b. Surrogate leadership
endorsing
• ADV.4. The first meeting I had after I was appointed was with the members of the senior generation to assess
the level of mutual agreement. I asked if they agreed with [Junior’s] leadership, and why they had decided to
gradually step back.
• JUN.4. [Advisor] is helping me do two things in relation to my two cousins; first, he helps me create situations
in which they can recognize my leadership role . . .
• ADV.2. My impression is that [Junior] has grown significantly in skills and leadership abilities . . .
• JUN.4. Our directors feel some kind of trepidation, or slight reverential fear [toward Advisor].
• ADV.1. I was recently appointed VP, after three years: in this role I can help strengthening [Junior’s] leadership
position.
3c. Task withdrawing • ADV.2. We still meet every once in a while, but with a different role, because [Junior] has absolutely no need
for the previous type of advice [I was providing him].
• ADV.3. I hence decided to withdraw my coaching task, when I felt there was no need for it anymore . . . while
I went back to a role I had already played in the past, that of helping non-family managers and directors in.
• JUN.3. My father is 65. Recently, after I joined the company, he purchased a factory; he’s there this afternoon . . .
he says he wants to gradually retire. He always said that, but recently he truly started to take some time off.
a.In order to protect the confidentiality of the interviewees, we are not able to identify them by name. However, we identified them by their
role (JUN = Junior; SEN = Senior; ADV = Advisor), followed by a number indicating the case (1-4; see Tables 1 and 2).

244 Family Business Review 26(3)
With [Junior] there are always personal and firm issues that
interact. There are personal issues related to his own
development. Personal issues related to his relationship
with the family and other persons. And firm-related issues
in his role as CEO. I tend to talk about all three issues
simultaneously each time we meet . . . At every meeting I
also check his relationships mainly with his cousin, but also
with the two other cousins he interacts with. I always make
sure that we always consider these three dimensions jointly.
(ADV.4)
This holistic approach to advising (Allen & Poteet,
2011; Joseph, 2010), mirrored the multifaceted needs
prompting Advisors’ intervention. As the Advisors we
interviewed explicitly recognized, developing a succes-
sor’s leadership traits was only one dimension of their
task. More important, helping a successor develop a
leadership within the family firm was also meant as a
way to fulfill his personal objectives and to contribute
to the well-being of the whole family system. Under
this respect, advisors recognized that their support may
have provided a significant contribution to Junior’s
development.
The outcomes of role-building processes were hence
considered as positive when they triggered an overall
enhancement of the person, rather than matching spe-
cific parameters:
[I value as positive] those changes that do not necessarily
follow the direction I had theoretically indicated, but that
simplify [Junior’s] life, that fulfill him in his relationships
with others, in managing the firm, and hence not necessarily
because [Junior] is matching what I originally had in mind.
(ADV.1)
1b. Leadership Granting Leadership granting activities
were aimed at securing Junior’s leadership role within
the family and the firm by bestowing leadership features
onto him. Leadership granting usually took the form of
a set of communication activities and organizational or
governance solutions aimed at supporting, affirming,
and sanctioning the attained leadership level. The Advi-
sors’ leadership granting role was essential to establish-
ing leadership outcomes, because advisors often took on
active leadership roles throughout the process, either in
governance (chairman, vice-chairman, director), or as
consultants in specific deals, hence sharing part of the
leadership task with their protégées. Therefore, before
leaving the stage, advisors had to make sure that the suc-
cessor’s leadership was established and recognized
Clarity and
Acceptance of
Junior’s
Leadership
Threats to Junior’s leadership construction
(Next-generation members other than selected Successor)
Support to Junior’s leadership construction
(Successor, Advisor and Senior Generation members)
Advisor’s
Transitional
Leadership
Task
withdrawing
Role
building
Role
questioning
Role
modelling
Leadership
granting
Leadership
claiming
Surrogate
Leadership
endorsing
Figure 2. An emergent model of junior’s leadership construction supported by advisor’s transitional leadership.

Salvato and Corbetta 245
through the following complementary activities. First,
leadership granting often took the form of recognizing
Junior’s accomplishments, especially when contrasting
the Advisor’s advice:
Last year I suggested [Junior] to reduce production
volumes. Luckily he did the contrary, because this allowed
us to serve our customers better. (ADV.2)
Second, the importance of leadership granting is con-
firmed by the only case in which Junior’s developing
leadership was challenged (Case 4). Here, leadership
granting activities were paralleled by signals of a leader-
ship role that had not matured yet:
As our Advisor clearly noticed, [Junior] should improve his
speech abilities, he should learn to better express his
thoughts. (SEN.4)
Third, these needs for improvement were paralleled
by both self-awareness of a less-than-fully accom-
plished leadership (“I still have a problem of legitimi-
zation”; JUN.4), and by a preponderant role of the
Advisor in shared leadership situations, such as when
the Advisor and Junior interacted in executive commit-
tees, meetings with external partners, or board
meetings:
In my opinion, [Advisor] outshines [Junior] in the Board of
directors; it is [Junior’s] task to emerge and to establish his
leadership. (SEN.4)
Dimension 2: Threats to Junior’s Leadership
Construction Posed by Family Members
The positive support to Junior’s leadership construction
was opposed by threats posed by junior-generation mem-
bers who were not selected as successors and, in some
instances, by senior-generation members who did not
agree with the choice of successor. These conflicting fam-
ily members enacted two types of threats to Junior’s lead-
ership: They questioned Junior’s leadership role (2a), and
they claimed leadership positions for themselves (2b).
2a. Role Questioning. A clear form of role questioning
became apparent when we analyzed our evidence related
to the reasons why the Advisor was called in by the fam-
ily. Hiring an advisor for a relevant task within family
firms is usually an activity requiring consensus (Strike,
2012). Key family members must agree on the Advisor’s
task and the targets he or she should accomplish. In con-
trast, in the four family business cases we observed, the
Advisor did not initially receive a straightforward man-
date expressing the clearly demarcated need to grow
successor leadership. Although supporting a successor
was always mentioned, family members of both the
senior and successor generations always interweaved a
number of related needs in describing the advisor’s task.
This resulted in a deconstruction of the central need for
advice—that is, leadership development—characterized
by significant degrees of uncertainty on all sides.
The family members’ descriptions of the need for
professional advice that we collected clearly showed
that a number of tightly related needs revolved around
the leadership-development issue. Taking on gover-
nance roles, clarifying family members’ roles, address-
ing family conflicts were often mentioned as the key
drivers of the request for advice. Even when succes-
sor’s leadership development was explicitly placed at
center stage in negotiating the advisor’s task (e.g., in
Case 4), additional related issues—such as favoring a
dialogue among cousins and chairing the company
board—always emerged. This deconstruction of the
core need made clear to us that both senior and junior
family members were not explicit and focused in spell-
ing the need for leadership development of a clearly
identified successor, because of the opposition to the
development of the successor’s leadership role. Some
family members in Cases 1 and 4 even denied that suc-
cessor’s leadership development was the key task of the
advisor, even when a written contract formalizing that
task had been signed.
This reluctance to explicitly frame the successor’s
leadership development task supports the claim that
“problems for which advisors are sought are rarely the
true issue. Many of the issues and disputes have deep
and emotional historical roots” (Strike, 2012, p. 161).
Advisors realized that their clients were not straightfor-
ward families “that would tell you: this is what we
need” (ADV.2). Besides not receiving specific direc-
tions on the task to be performed, at times advisors
found it difficult to grasp the meaning of some family
requests, as they could not immediately see the relation
with successor development. One of the advisors, for
instance, said,
After the death of Junior’s father, they asked me to join
their board. I cannot say why. I never really understood the
reason. (ADV.1)

246 Family Business Review 26(3)
Despite this uncertainty, advisors realized that avoid-
ing to be explicit about the successor’s development role
was a way for the controlling family to preserve the deli-
cate mechanisms and balances underpinning succession.
As one advisor told us,
There was no specific target related to a future leadership
role of [Junior] . . . The issue was: what is the best possible
way to introduce [Junior] within the firm, while at the same
time preserving company values and siblings’ autonomy?
(ADV.3)
The underlying reason for the lack of clarity we
observed in defining and formalizing the advisor’s
task clearly emerged from our interviews as the result
of the opposition of some family members to Junior’s
leadership role, as the following comparative quotes
suggest:
It gradually became clear that the family did not intend to
explicitly formalize my task as “developing [Junior’s]
leadership”, as this would have automatically implied that
he had been already appointed as the next CEO, which is
something some of them were deeply questioning.
(ADV.2)
When you see it written on a formal contract–“the advisor’s
task will be to develop the leadership skills of [Junior] as
our next CEO”–well, that sounds somewhat final, but this
was something that a number of our family members were
not ready to take; there was still significant opposition to
this choice, because this type of choices require time to be
gradually accepted by everyone. (SEN.4)
2b. Leadership Claiming. Leadership claiming behaviors
complemented role questioning as threats to Junior’s
leadership posed by other junior-generation family
members and, at times, other senior family members.
Questioning Junior’s role and attitudes to leadership
was, in most of the instances we observed, the result of
more or less explicit claims to becoming a family busi-
ness leader, or to keeping an existing leadership
position.
In Case 1, a listed company with no other junior fam-
ily member who could claim leadership positions, inde-
pendent board members representing powerful external
shareholders highlighted in a number of instances their
greater experience and significant decision power vis-à-
vis the young Junior successor, who was also sitting in
the family firm’s board of directors. As Junior’s uncle,
the company chairman, reported,
[Junior] had to devote significant time and energies to be
recognized as a leader within the Board. He has an
important position, the link between company managers
and the board. In several instances I observed both board
members and some of our executives challenging his
leadership on account of their influential position or greater
experience. But eventually [Junior] won their support. The
role of [Advisor] was essential in helping him understand
how to interact with these more senior guys. (SEN.1)
In Cases 2 and 3 the successor’s role was not signifi-
cantly challenged by other junior-generation members.
Yet some of them claimed areas of decisional autonomy
on account of historical division of roles within the fam-
ily and of their tenure and track record:
My sister wants to be autonomous in her [design] area; I
understand this is based on her significant skills in that
area. Yet it is difficult to lead a company when you cannot
claim full control on a crucial function of the business.
(JUN.2)
I know I have to be careful whenever some of my decisions,
or even strategic analyses, have an impact on the divisions
where my sisters claim full responsibility. (JUN.3)
In Case 4, leadership claiming by juniors who were
not selected as next company leaders was even more
explicit and resulted in pressures from both the Juniors
themselves, or two seniors who claimed a possible lead-
ership role of other next-generation family members:
My cousin has always been convinced, and he still is, that
he should have been the CEO. This is the main reason why
I still was not granted a permanent CEO position. (JUN.4)
My brother was probably convinced that in this way his son
would have been selected as next CEO by the family; as
this did not eventually happen, their relationship
significantly deteriorated. (SEN.4)
Dimension 3: Advisor’s Transitional
Leadership
The support (role building and leadership granting) and
the threats (role questioning and leadership claiming) to
Juniors’ leadership development determined contrasting
effects on the process of Juniors’ leadership construc-
tion. In the four cases we analyzed, Advisors played an
essential role in balancing these opposing forces toward
accomplishing a clear and accepted leadership role of
Junior (Figure 2). Our data reveal that by taking on an

Salvato and Corbetta 247
explicitly transient leadership role, the Advisor could
balance these opposing forces by acting as a role model
to the successor (3a), by endorsing Junior’s leadership
(3b), and by eventually withdrawing the advisor’s task
to confirm Junior’s accomplished leadership (3c).
3a. The Advisor as Role Model. In all four cases, we
clearly observed that a significant contribution to
building Juniors’ roles as next-generation leaders
resulted from their opportunity to closely observe their
Advisor’s leadership behavior. Role modeling is sel-
dom used in formal leadership-building interventions,
which usually favor types of relationships character-
ized by a more formal relationship initiation, higher
relational closeness, and some interaction—such as in
the mentor–protégé and coach–client relationships
(Haggard, Dougherty, Turban, & Wilbanks, 2011).
However, the high trust and close relationships we
observed in all four cases between advisors and family
members allowed this relatively detached form of lead-
ership building to coexist with the closer and warmer
interactions characterizing “Role building.”
Role modeling took two separate, although often
coexisting forms. First, as in the two following exam-
ples from the same case, advisors offered instructive
examples of leadership behavior in governance roles
(chairman in Case 4, vice-chairman in Case 1, informal
member of the board in Case 3), from which both junior
and senior family members learnt:
What I really admire in [Advisor] is when I see him in
action. I learn a lot when I see him interacting with my
cousin, or when during a board meeting, even when he’s at
a disadvantage on a specific topic, he’s able to convince or
curb the other director, or to see that issues that would have
divided the family or the board are later accepted. (JUN.4)
That was a situation in which [Junior] understood how a
CEO should relate to the Chairman of the Board. [Advisor]
is a factual person, able to build consensus and to
simultaneously listen to minority shareholders . . . hence
[Junior] learned from him how a Board should function . . .
I learned it myself! (SEN.4)
Second, Advisors often acted as consultants in spe-
cific deals (e.g., a key organizational decision in Case
1, financial consulting in Case 2, two acquisitions in
Case 3). In these instances, learning was not confined
to relationship skills but extended to methodological
issues:
When I and [Junior] met these canny managers of the target
company, who were proposing to evaluate their company
with inadequate techniques to keep the price high, I showed
[Junior] that he needed to strengthen some aspects; lack of
experience, naivety. (ADV.3)
Recently we were discussing about an important divestment
decision. We had a meeting in which I and [Senior] casually
jotted down a number of alternatives that [Advisor] more
systematically summarized and put together. In terms of
methods [Advisor] provided a significant help. He did not
find a magic formula, but I took note and later replicated
exactly what [Advisor] had suggested. (JUN.1)
Interestingly, the close, continued relationships
between Advisor and Junior we observed in the four
family firms also allowed the Advisor to closely observe
Junior in action, hence providing invaluable material to
provide factual feedback and advice:
There is both my work as director, and personal work. I
always met with [Junior], however my involvement in their
board allowed me to see him in action. (ADV.1)
3b. The Advisor as Provider of Surrogate Leadership Endors-
ing. Within leadership succession processes in nonfam-
ily firms, leadership of the selected successor is typically
endorsed by incumbent leaders. Once a new CEO is
selected, incumbent leaders and stakeholders grant him
or her leadership rights through both formal and sym-
bolic actions, therefore endorsing his or her leadership
position (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996). The family
firms we observed, however, displayed some peculiar
traits at this stage. Leadership granting activities (1b)
were evident. Yet they were not sufficient to establish a
clear and widely accepted leadership role of the selected
successor. Unlike in nonfamily firms, in which the
power to select the new CEO is premised on voting
rights, leadership claims (2b) of other family members
who felt entitled to the top leadership position, or even
of powerful nonfamily members questioning the succes-
sor’s leadership attitudes, were sufficiently strong to
prevent an endorsement of the incoming CEO.
As our data revealed, an essential role in buttressing
leadership granting activities to contrast leadership
claiming by other family members was played by the
advisor through what we labeled as “surrogate leader-
ship endorsing” (3b). Endorsing a new leader is mainly
the task of incumbent leaders, or of the shareholders
who selected the successor. When a third-party

248 Family Business Review 26(3)
individual actively engages in impression management
behavior that facilitates a positive image of the leader,
he or she is taking on a surrogate role by serving as a
substitute, or complement, for the leadership endorsing
task that others should play or are playing (Bolino,
Kacmar, Turnley, & Gilstrap, 2008; Galvin, Balkundi, &
Waldman, 2010). Surrogate leadership endorsing per-
formed by the Advisor took three different forms that we
observed in almost all four cases: junior leadership pro-
motion, junior leadership defense, modeling family
members’ followership.
First, leveraging their transitional leadership role,
Advisors had several opportunities for Junior leadership
promotion. As we could observe, promotion very often
consisted of making positive direct statements about
Junior’s personality and ability, his accomplishments,
and his leadership skills. Leadership promotion took the
form of explicit statements such as “I believe [Junior]
should keep the CEO position” (ADV.4), or “I believe
[Junior] is ready; he does have talent” (ADV.1), address-
ing key senior family members. Different statements
were usually addressed to the successor’s peers, such as
[Junior] has an helicopter view of the firm that you guys
lack; he has a commitment to the firm that you lack; would
you be willing to work 14 hours a day as [Junior] does, and
to come to the office on all Saturdays as he does? (ADV.4)
Second, Advisors were active in Junior leadership
defense. Our analysis of multiple critical incidents that
emerged from interviews showed that defense behav-
iors represented attempts by the Advisor to buffer
Junior from open conflicts with family members, and to
mitigate the negative feelings that emerged among the
family members who were still claiming leadership
from themselves, as the successor made his first leader-
ship decisions. In this phase, advisors enacted behav-
iors aimed at buffering possible conflicts triggered by
successor’s raising power. Although in most of the
observed instances contenders were members of the
successor generation—siblings or cousins—at times we
also observed behaviors aimed at temporarily discon-
necting Junior from senior-generation members, typi-
cally from different family branches (e.g., Case 4). The
need for temporary disconnection was often made
explicit by a member of the senior generation, as it is
evident in the following comparative statements, in
which Advisors report conversations they had with
Seniors:
You know I really want to avoid any interference among
active family members; each one has his or her autonomy;
it is ok if a family member wants to discuss with a brother
or sister, but autonomy must be preserved. (SEN.3 reported
by ADV.3)
Listen, I would really appreciate . . . please, help us avoid
interactions, interference, obstacles in the organization
we’re trying to set up. (SEN.2 reported by ADV.2)
Directions like these were in some instances given to
advisors to preserve the role and competence of active
family members who were already covering managerial
positions, hence reducing potential conflicts with the
successor. Meeting with family members separately, to
learn about emerging organizational problems related
to Junior’s growing leadership, and family members’
related anxieties, was a common form of Junior’s lead-
ership defense:
I met with [Junior’s cousin] who was complaining
about [Junior’s] interference in his job; a job he had
been performing autonomously for a number of years.
(ADV.4)
Another form of defense behavior performed by
Advisors was the definition of Junior’s early tasks in a
way that would minimize his interference with same-
generation members:
It was straightforward to get him started with the “Business
Developer” role, which means: you have no reports, no
[profit] responsibility and, more importantly, you do not
take on responsibilities from the businesses that are already
running well, that are managed well by [your sisters].
(ADV.3)
Third, Advisors played an active role in modeling
family members’ followership, by explicitly representing
what an appropriate response to or interaction with the
new leader should look like. The disconnecting phase
was always followed by activities aimed at creating, or
recreating relationships among family members in
which leadership of Junior could gradually emerge and
be recognized. Before the advising process started, the
successor had been considered as a peer by siblings or
cousins active in the family business. Therefore, leader
promotion activities performed by Advisors were aimed
both at creating an organizational context allowing
Junior’s leadership to emerge, and at preserving part of
the organizational autonomy of peers. Informally

Salvato and Corbetta 249
meeting family members together, to clarify their mutual
roles and expectations, was probably the most common
form of modeling followership:
At that meeting [Advisor] tried to set some limits: my
cousin should have referred to me on a number of issues; I
should have not controlled him on a number of other issues;
. . . I remember [Advisor’s] aim was to establish: ok, we
decided that this is how you will proceed, these are the
general rules you will follow when relating to [Junior].
(JUN.4)
A further approach we observed consisted in the
Advisor modeling family members’ followership by
facilitating dyadic relationships between Junior and key
family members on specific company issues. In these
cases, the Advisor provided a direct intervention on the
contents addressed, in line with what a consultant would
do, but with a clear focus on facilitating the acceptance
of Junior’s role, as the following comparative statements
suggest:
A significant help I received from [Advisor] was when we
changed our [non-family] CEO. [Advisor] helped me think
about the issue in a structured way, hence strengthening my
position in relation to [Senior]. (JUN.1)
Although [Junior] substantially agreed on what had to be
done, he wanted the decision be shared by [Senior]. We
hence had a meeting in which I illustrated my opinion. I
believe I took an open yet resolute position, which I believe
helped [Senior] to accept and share [Junior’s] decision.
(ADV.1)
In synthesis, surrogate leadership endorsing was
essential in balancing leadership granting provided by
the Advisor (1b) and leadership claiming by other
junior-generation members (1b) contrasting forces. The
leadership granting activities performed by advisors
were not sufficient, alone, to counterbalance the claim-
ing of leadership by junior-generation members who felt
entitled in the leadership role assigned to the successor.
The additional—or surrogate—endorsing activities per-
formed by a highly trusted advisor who was also playing
an important, though only temporary, leadership role
added the missing arguments to convince junior-genera-
tion members to accept the successor’s role.
The leadership position covered by Advisor was
essential in triggering an emotional state in family mem-
bers that was conducive of crediting and acting in accor-
dance with the Advisor’s leadership endorsing actions.
In one case, for instance, we noticed systematic traces of
some kind of “reverential fear” of family members
toward the Advisor, who was covering a significant gov-
ernance role in the company, as the following compara-
tive statements suggest:
It is maybe [the Advisor’s] formal role, or his reputation,
but our directors feel some kind of trepidation, or slight
reverential fear if you prefer. (JUN.4)
I think my son is at times even overshadowed by [Advisor]
during some board meetings; the other family members
recognize that [Junior] and the Advisor are somewhat
sharing, though only temporarily, the leadership role.
(SEN.4)
3c. Advisor’s Task Withdrawing In the family firms we inves-
tigated, the termination of the Advisor’s engagement was a
negotiated practice involving the Advisor and the Junior.
Under this respect, letting the advisory task go and leaving the
stage entirely to the successor showed some similarities with
the generational succession process. First, the decision to with-
draw resulted from a mutual adaptation between Advisor and
successor (Handler, 1990). The successor at times perceived a
decreased need to interact with the advisor:
As time goes by, I feel a reduced need [of interaction with
Advisor] in that form. (JUN.3)
Similarly, Advisors often perceived that their help
was less or not needed anymore, and spontaneously
withdrew their contract. Affect played a significant role
in the advisor’s task-withdrawing stage. In particular,
the feeling of pride toward Junior’s accomplishments
facilitated the advisor’s decision to withdraw the task
and hence to seal Junior’s leadership role:
A sense of pride, as if one of my sons had reached those
results. (ADV.3)
A feeling, I would say, of pride and satisfaction, when I saw
he had changed, when I saw there had been some visible
improvements. (ADV.4)
However, affect also had a contrasting effect on
Advisors’ task withdrawing. We were somewhat sur-
prised to observe feelings of paternal affect of the
Advisor toward the advised successor, as these two
comparative quotes highlight:
Sometimes I see [Junior] . . . I see my role not as a coach
but . . . paternal. (ADV.3)

250 Family Business Review 26(3)
I hence felt highly involved [in the advising process]; it was
almost as if I was helping my own son. (ADV.1)
Although these feelings positively affected how role
building (1a) was performed, as they significantly
increased the Advisor’s commitment and dedication to
the task, they may have hampered or retarded task with-
drawing (3c), given the nearly paternal need of the
Advisors to preserve their supporting role to Juniors in
difficult times.
Discussion
In this study, we addressed the question of how Advisors
affect the relational processes through which successors
come to see themselves, and be seen by others, as family
business leaders. Our focus was hence on the Advisor’s
role in the successors’ leadership construction process.
Our inductive analysis of four leadership development
processes in generational family firms revealed that
Advisors play a crucial role in balancing the facilitating
and contrasting forces affecting juniors’ leadership. In
particular, by taking on a transitional leadership role
shared with incumbent senior leaders and the selected
successor, Advisors facilitate the process through which
Juniors’ leadership gradually becomes clear and
accepted by all actors involved. The emergent grounded
model of advisor-supported leadership construction is
illustrated in Figure 2. The concept of Advisor’s transi-
tional leadership is a novel addition to both the literature
on family business succession, and to knowledge on
leadership construction processes.
Transitional Advisors’ Leadership in Family
Business Succession Processes
What we observed in our four ethnographic case studies
is a form of temporary shared leadership that is not
reported in either family business succession, or leader-
ship literatures. In the four cases, Advisors could effec-
tively balance the forces facilitating and opposing the
construction of successors’ leadership because they had
taken on a leadership role themselves, although only a
temporary one. In Cases 1 and 4, the Advisor was an
influential member of the family firm’s board of direc-
tors—vice-chairman and chairman, respectively. In
Cases 2 and 3, the Advisor had no formal leadership
role, but he was seen as a trusted Advisor who could
significantly influence the strategic decisions in which
the selected successor involved him. In all four cases,
these formal or informal roles were explicitly meant to
be temporary, and targeted to supporting Junior’s growth
as the incoming company CEO.
This transitional leadership role served as a bridge
between the old and the new leadership setups in family
firms. It was hence intentionally temporary and unlikely
to be adopted as permanent. As such, the Advisors’ tem-
porary leadership that we discovered differs from other
forms of individual-level identity such as possible selves
and provisional selves (Clark, Gioia, Ketchen, &
Thomas, 2010). Possible and provisional selves are not
intended to be temporary, but they are experiments that
will likely become permanent if deemed successful by
the individual experiencing them, or by the organization
around her. The leadership of the selected successors we
observed, in Case 4 in particular, are an example:
Successors were appointed as incoming family business
leaders, with the intention of the controlling family to
make the appointment permanent, unless extraordinary
events suggested the opposite. In contrast, the Advisors’
transitional leadership we observed was explicitly attrib-
uted to Advisors to facilitate an intentionally discontinu-
ous bridging process. This bridging role of advisors may
become an addition to existing models of the family
business succession process (e.g., De Massis et al.,
2008; Le Breton-Miller et al., 2004; Venter, Boshoff, &
Maas, 2005) and of successors’ leadership development
(e.g., Cater & Justis, 2009; Salvato, Minichilli, &
Piccarreta, 2012; Sardeshmukh & Corbett, 2011).
Besides being temporary, or transitional, Advisors’
leadership role was also shared with both senior family
members and the selected successors. Shared leadership
(Carson et al., 2007) has not received significant attention
in family business research. The underlying assumption
of family business leadership and succession literature is
that leadership positions are transferred to individual fam-
ily or nonfamily members (Salvato et al., 2012). In con-
trast with this standpoint, in none of the four cases we
investigated the Advisor was the sole, or even the key
decision maker. Even in Case 1, in which the Advisor was
chairman of the board, key strategic decisions were driven
by the two incumbent senior leaders—Junior’s father and
uncle, respectively—and by the newly appointed CEO.
Although shared leadership is a well-studied phenom-
enon in organization theory, the transitional component
we observed is a novel addition to this literature. Shared
leadership is usually defined as “an emergent team prop-
erty that results from the distribution of leadership

Salvato and Corbetta 251
influence across multiple team members” (Carson et al.,
2007, p. 1218). As we could observe in the four cases, it
is a relational phenomenon, because it implies strong
interactions and mutual influence between two or more
organizational agents as they work toward team objec-
tives (Carson et al., 2007). As in the case of our Advisors,
leaders in shared leadership arrangements do not have to
be officially or formally appointed. Indeed shared leader-
ship is a mutual influence process within a team that is
characterized by “serial emergence” of official as well as
unofficial leaders (Pearce, Yoo, & Alavi, 2004). Within
teams characterized by shared leadership there can hence
be several formally appointed and/or emergent leaders
(Mehra, Smith, Dixon, & Robertson, 2006).
Emergent leadership refers to organizational agents—
advisors, in the cases we investigated—exerting signifi-
cant influence over other members of their
group—seniors, next-generation members, and nonfam-
ily executives and directors—although no formal
authority was vested in them (Schneier & Goktepe,
1983). In the four family firms we observed, temporary
shared leadership originated when advisors engaged in
activities that influenced both family and nonfamily
employees in areas related to direction, motivation, and
support and through interactions that involved the nego-
tiation and sharing of leadership responsibilities. The
resulting collective structure we observed can hence be
considered to be a temporary leadership network that
influences and shapes both the family firm’s and indi-
vidual activities and outcomes (Carson et al., 2007).
The Holistic Relationship Between Advisors,
Successors, and Family Firms
A further contribution of our study to the literature on
family business succession emerges from the uniquely
intense approach to successors’ leadership development
we could observe in all four cases. This was driven by
the relevant, though transitional, leadership role assumed
by the advisor in relation to both the individual succes-
sor, and the overall family business system. First, our
study suggests a holistic or person-centric view of suc-
cessors’ development, in contrast to the prevailing
approach focused on developing specific traits of the
successor, such as technical skills, industry knowledge,
tacit firm-specific knowledge (Boyd et al., 1999; Turner
Foster, 1995). A person-centric approach to growing
successors implies the simultaneous development of all
dimensions of the successor as a person—a rich and
complex amalgamation of rationality, behavior, and
emotions (Rogers, 1961). This means that explaining
why and how some succession processes work, whereas
others do not, requires a broader and deeper investiga-
tion of the rational, behavioral, and emotional dimen-
sions involved than is currently displayed in the
succession literature. In particular, our data reveal that
succession processes seem to function better when—
besides training specific individual traits—family inter-
personal relationships (Shams & Lane, 2011), together
with affect and emotions (Baker & Wiseman, 1998), are
simultaneously addressed by external advisors.
Second, we provide an explanation of how the rela-
tion between the family firm and the advisor evolves
over time. Understanding this relationship and how it
affects an advisor’s effectiveness has proved elusive due
to a lack of tailored inductive studies (Strike, 2012). As
our data reveal, the family–advisor interaction does not
develop in the direction of emerging mutual trustworthi-
ness; trust is often there since the inception, although
subject to an evolution. Similarly, knowledge of the
family and its business are also prerequisites of the
advising relationship. Rather, the most significant evo-
lution is observed in the affect-related dimension of the
advisor–family relationship. Here, the initial feeling of
obligation that is often present because of the previous
history of interaction is gradually substituted by a nearly
paternal feeling of personal responsibility toward the
successor, which is eventually replaced by a feeling of
pride in the successor’s accomplishments.
Finally, we offer insights in the advice-leaving pro-
cess in family firms—an overlooked yet potentially gen-
erative dimension of the literature on family firm advising
(Strike, 2012). As our data reveal, a significant compo-
nent of the advisor’s successor-development task takes
the form of role modeling in governance and manage-
ment activities. The exemplary behavior offered by the
Advisor—who often temporarily performs leadership
activities that should gradually pass on to the successor-
generation member—is a significant determinant of suc-
cessor’s leadership growth. What we also observed is
that for leadership development to be effective, advisors
need to “let go” of their roles within the family firm in a
way which is not dissimilar from the “phasing out” and
“transition to new roles” of family incumbents described
by integrative models of succession (e.g., Le Breton-
Miller et al., 2004). Advice seeking, giving/taking, and
leaving “are related and reciprocal activities” (Strike,
2012) that involve advisors as well as senior and junior

252 Family Business Review 26(3)
family members. Therefore, successful leadership devel-
opment results from careful scrutiny of the delicate bal-
ance between management and leadership roles
performed by the Advisor, and the empowerment and
growth in credibility of the next-generation member.
Limitations and Future Research
Two limitations of this study merit discussion. First, we
explicitly selected family firms in which both juniors and
advisors belonged to the same gender. This choice
allowed us to control for the significant role of gender in
shaping succession processes (Vera & Dean, 2005), lead-
ership outcomes (Ryan & Haslam, 2007), and coaching/
mentoring relationships (Allen, Eby, O’Brien, & Lentz,
2008). However, it has clearly limited the richness that
could be elicited by investigating a gender-varied sam-
ple. Future research may be explicitly directed to under-
standing both the different needs of female versus male
successors, and the possibly different approaches fol-
lowed by advisors to develop their leadership skills.
Second, we explicitly selected family firms from one
single country, to control for the significant influence of
cultural variables in shaping leadership development
processes (e.g., Allen et al., 2008; Gaines, Gurung, Lin,
& Pouli, 2006). This choice limited opportunities to illu-
minate the highly relevant impact of national factors on
the leadership development process. Future studies may
explicitly compare juniors’ leadership development pat-
terns across countries. A reasonable expectation is that
such patterns will vary depending on the different atti-
tudes toward leadership characterizing different national
cultures, and the different pervasiveness of the executive
coaching profession across countries.
A further line of future inquiry may address the role
of senior-generation members and incumbent leaders in
developing juniors’ leadership positions, which was not
a focus of this study. As incumbent leaders are often
close relatives of incoming junior-generation members,
we can expect significantly different patterns of leader-
ship construction. In particular, senior-generation mem-
bers may tend to have significantly higher levels of
emotional involvement in the leadership development
process, and more frequent and intense role-modeling
opportunities. Furthermore, the interaction between the
leadership development role of advisors and seniors
may also merit focused research attention, to understand
how their different motivations, experiences, and cogni-
tions jointly shape junior generation’s leadership.
Appendix
Question Guide for Ethnographic Interviews
With Advisorsa (Simplified)
Background
 Name of the junior-generation member, age, and
positions covered in the company
 Position of junior in the genogram/family tree
 Other key actors in business and family (family
members, nonfamily managers, advisors)
Advising Process
 Over what period did the advising process take
place?
 Who requested (or proposed) the advising pro-
cess? (or, how did it spontaneously start?)
 Was your advising role informal or formally
defined (objectives, methods, duration)?
 Was the advising process triggered by a specific
problem or goal? CHECK: In particular: “personal
Conclusion
In this article, we investigated the role of external advi-
sors in developing the leadership profile of next-genera-
tion members, an important yet overlooked phenomenon
in family business generational succession. Our analysis
of four comparative cases of successors’ leadership con-
struction confirmed the received wisdom of junior lead-
ership as resulting, in part, from external experiences
and knowledge transferred by incumbent family leaders.
Yet close observation of advisor–junior interactions also
revealed the essential role played by advisors in co-cre-
ating a strong leadership profile in collaboration with
senior family members and juniors themselves. This
role is not confined to formal training and to consulting
on specific challenges faced by the next-generation
leader. In developing and strengthening juniors’ leader-
ship, Advisors themselves temporarily took a leadership
role within the family firm as chairman or member of
the board, or as strategic consultants in relevant firm ini-
tiatives. This transitional leadership role allowed
Advisors to act as role models that juniors could directly
observe and closely interact with. This insight expands
the scope of relationships that need to be observed when
addressing processes of leadership development and
generational succession in family firms.

Salvato and Corbetta 253
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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a. Question guides for interviews with junior- and senior-generation
members followed a similar format.

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Author Biographies
Carlo Salvato is an associate professor of Strategic Management
at the Department of Management and Technology, Bocconi
University, Italy, where he is a Fellow of the CRIOS Research
Center and where he collaborates with the AIdAF-Alberto Falck
Chair in Strategic Management in Family Business.
Guido Corbetta is the AIdAF-Alberto Falck Chair in Family
Business Strategy at Bocconi University, Italy, where he is
also a Fellow of the CRIOS Research Center.