When the Role Finds You: The Tension Between Belonging and Becoming

Episode notes

In this episode, we’re joined by Alexander Saunders, Practice Director at Dialogos. Alex is a generative facilitator working at the intersection of dialogue, leadership, and complex human systems. Through work across the entertainment, venture capital, and hospitality sectors, as well as his own fifth-generation family business and other family-owned enterprises ranging from single-site operations to global hospitality groups, he brings both practical experience and scholarly grounding to the challenges of leadership, transition, and belonging within family enterprise. Our conversation focuses on what it means to find your place when identity, expectation, and opportunity become deeply intertwined, and on how families can create the conditions for people to grow into responsibility with greater clarity and readiness. We talk about the tension between being invited in and truly feeling ready, the importance of mentors and support systems during seasons of transition, and why self-awareness can be such a critical foundation for contribution and governance.

Related episodes across the Index

Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.

• Succession: a personal storyExploring Family Business · on family business68 / 100
• Season 1 - Episode 25 | The Real Journey of Entrepreneurship - Pain, Purpose, and Personal Growth: Mr. Daron Hongsananda (Thailand)Thriving in the Age of Disruption · on family business65 / 100
• How Tech Thursday Became the Heartbeat of Canada's Prairie Tech EcosystemWhat The Tech? · on canada44 / 100
• Embracing The Holtz Way: A Multi-Million Dollar Story // Rick Holtz of H.J. Holtz & Son, Inc.Success Beyond The Brush · on family business

• Inherited Vision, Unwritten Future: How the Next Generation Shapes What Comes Next80 / 100
• The Next Chair: Governing Tomorrow, Next Generation Leadership in Family Enterprises58 / 100
• Return on Meaning: Rethinking Wealth Beyond Financial Capital
• The Architecture of Ownership: How Families Build Structures That Last
• Designing for the Life Ahead: How Homes Can Support Every Stage of Family Life