John Engels

John Engels is a family relationship researcher who teaches, coaches, speaks and writes internationally on family business leadership, family relationships, and emotional maturity.

In 1996, he founded Leadership Coaching, Inc., a consortium of executive coaches who share a specialized background in Bowen Family Systems Theory.  Their work seeks to build strong families, resilient family businesses and healthy systems across all sectors of human society.

John and his colleagues help owners and leaders examine the key building blocks of exceptional relationship management, including the beliefs, assumptions and biases that influence their interactions and decisions.

After earning undergraduate (St. Bonaventure University) and master’s (Graduate Theological Union) degrees, John studied at the Center for Family Process in Bethesda, Md., and The Georgetown Family Center in Washington, DC., including More than 100 hours of research in the Murray Bowen Archives at the National Library of Medicine.  He has enjoyed a 27-year association with the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, in the nation’s capital.

John’s family knowledge has been deepened by wide exposures, including law enforcement chiefs, business heads, indigenous and spiritual leaders, cross-cultural village elders, Attica Prison inmates, animal biologists, military combat leaders, and education and government administrators.

His podcasts and programs have been sponsored by Vistage Chairs, the Family Business Alliance, Young Presidents Organization, New York State Chiefs of Police, United States Military Academy at West Point, California Ambulatory Surgery Association, Caritas Bangladesh, the American University of Beirut, Tazaki Psychiatric Hospital in Okinawa, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in Dublin, and hundreds of other organizations.

John teaches an online course, “Family Systems, Relationship Intelligence, and Leadership Maturity,” for the Family Business Leadership Certificate Program at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Business. He is a Fellow of the Smith Family Business Initiative at Cornell, and a long-time Advisor for the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family in Washington, DC.  John’s relationship management blog began in 2010, and reaches more than ten thousand readers monthly.