Should my successor work somewhere else first?

In most cases, yes. A few years working somewhere else, in a real job with a manager who owes the family nothing, gives a successor two things the family business cannot: a track record nobody can attribute to their surname, and a view of how other organisations are run. It is not a requirement, and it does not replace preparation for leading the family company itself.

The useful question for a parent is less “should they” and more “what is outside experience meant to give them, and how will we know it has?”.

What outside experience gives a successor

Credibility that cannot be questioned

When a successor arrives with a record built elsewhere, promotions earned, a team led, results delivered for an employer with no reason to be kind, it answers a question the senior team will otherwise ask quietly: would this person have this job if they were not family?

The question never disappears entirely. But a successor who can point to work done on their own merits starts with more room than one whose entire career has taken place under the parent’s roof.

Confidence that is their own

Many successors carry a private doubt about whether they are good, or only well placed. Succeeding where nobody knew their name settles part of that doubt. It also makes them less dependent on the parent’s approval, which matters later when they have to disagree with the parent at work.

A wider view of how things can be done

Every company has habits that feel like laws from the inside. A successor who has seen other ways of hiring, budgeting, running meetings or treating customers brings back options the family business has never considered. They also learn which of the family company’s habits are genuine strengths.

The experience of being managed

A successor who has only ever worked for their parent has never had an ordinary boss. Being managed by someone else, receiving a hard review, competing for a promotion: these teach a successor what it feels like to sit on the other side of the table, which makes them a better leader of their own team later.

What outside experience does not give them

Outside experience is valuable, but it is easy to expect too much from it.

It does not teach the family business. The customers, the history, the informal rules, who really holds influence: these are learned inside.
It does not build relationships with the people they will lead. Senior executives who have spent decades with the founder will judge the successor on what they see in the company, not on a previous employer’s opinion.
It does not prepare them for the family table. Disagreeing with a parent, handling siblings, leading a family meeting about succession: no outside employer offers that practice.
It does not guarantee authority on return. A successor who was respected at a large firm can still freeze when the family company’s board turns to them. The rooms are different, and so are the stakes.

This is why some successors with excellent outside careers still struggle in the first year back. The experience was real. It just prepared them for a different set of rooms.

How long is enough?

There is no fixed rule, and it is worth being wary of anyone who offers one. What matters more than the number of years is what happened during them.

Useful signs that outside experience has done its job:

They were promoted at least once, by people with no connection to the family.
They managed people, not only projects.
They were responsible for a result that could be measured and was theirs.
They experienced failure or a hard setback and dealt with it without the family stepping in.

For many successors this takes somewhere between a few years and the better part of a decade, depending on the field and the pace of their career. Staying too long has its own cost: a successor who returns at 40 may find the senior team settled around the founder, and less time to build authority before the handover.

Does it matter where they work?

Less than families often think. A successor does not need to have worked at a famous firm. What matters is that the work was real, the standards were high, and the family name carried no weight.

Some families prefer an outside role in the same industry, for the knowledge and contacts it brings. Others prefer a different industry, precisely because nobody there has heard of the family. Both can work. The choice is best made by the successor, with the parent’s view as input rather than instruction.

What if they have already joined the business?

Plenty of successors join straight from university, or after a short spell elsewhere, and go on to lead well. If that is your situation, the goal is to create inside the business some of what outside experience would have given them:

A role with real accountability, reporting to someone other than the parent where possible.
Results that are measurable and visibly theirs.
Honest feedback, which is harder to get inside a family company, because people are polite to the owner’s child.
External exposure, such as a board seat elsewhere, an industry body or a cross-company project.

These do not fully replace time away. They close much of the gap.

When they come back

The return is a leadership moment in its own right, and it is often handled casually. The senior team will watch closely for signs of whether the successor arrives as a learner or as an heir.

A few things help. Be clear in advance about the role they are returning to and what it decides. Avoid placing them above long-serving executives on day one without an obvious reason. Let them earn visible wins in their first months. And prepare them for leading people who knew them as a child, which outside experience rarely covers.

In short

Outside experience gives a successor a record nobody can attribute to the family name, their own confidence, and a wider view of how companies are run.
It does not teach the family business, build relationships with the people they will lead, or prepare them for the family table.
Judge it by what happened, promotions, people managed, results owned, not by the number of years.
If they have not worked elsewhere, recreate some of its benefits inside: real accountability, honest feedback and external exposure.
Treat the return as a leadership moment and prepare for it.

Outside experience is one part of a wider preparation. For the rest, see how to prepare your son or daughter to take over the family business.