(FORTUNE Small Business) – When I came to work one recent morning, quitting my job as CEO was not even on my mind. I was happy about landing a new account and shared the good news with my father. But he was in one of his moods. "Well, I hope you make a profit," he said with a scowl. My temper rising, I shot back, "What the hell do you think I'm going to do?" And off we went. The fracas, carried out full throat in front of the entire staff and within earshot of some suppliers, ended when he declared, "I own 51% of this company." "Fine," I responded, "then you run it." His reply: "No way." Then my zinger: "Well, you're going to have to. I quit." I grabbed my bag and my Rolodex and made my exit.

It is a wonder we hadn't detonated each other before. Though he hadn't played a significant role in day-to-day decisions for years, my father still carried the title of chairman of our family's plastic-bag business, and he spent two to three days a week ensconced in his corner office reviewing profit reports for jobs we had run the previous week. If he saw something he didn't like, he would mark up the reports and pass them around, letting everyone know of his disapproval. Often, while heading to the copier, he would buttonhole employees about decisions or performance issues. Late in the day he and I would meet, and he would critique the company's performance.

My situation isn't that unusual. Founders often hang around family businesses long after they've given up operating control. The corporate equivalent features the chief executive who becomes chairman but never surrenders the big office. Either way the successor--in this case me, as chief executive--must straddle the complicated tasks of keeping his chairman reasonably content while moving the organization forward, often in directions his predecessor might not have chosen.

I've seen those forces rip companies apart. I know a father who fired, then slugged, his son, the chief executive, after an argument over the son's marketing strategy. The father won, and today the business no longer exists. I know a daughter who sued her father after he fired her. They eventually settled but haven't spoken in years.

I weighed these stories for several hours at home after my resignation. I recognized that I leaned on my father for advice when making difficult strategic decisions. For instance, last year, while our sales grew 20%, I delayed buying new equipment. My father helped cajole me into plunking down $2 million for a new printing press and millions more for additional warehouse space. And no matter how annoying I found his pontificating on job profitability vs. sales growth, his observations were often correct.

But there were signs a power struggle hadn't fully played out. His laser-like focus on profit margins for each job often caused him to overlook the benefits of losing money on new products for a while as we learned to manufacture them profitably. Two years ago he argued that we had no business producing a new spinach bag because we couldn't immediately make money doing so. I countered that we would soon become more efficient and turn a profit. I was right.

More troubling, members of our office staff, who revered my father as the company's founder, continued to take cues from him. That undercut my ability to manage. One longtime customer-service worker admitted that when she heard my father rail about a particular customer's profitability, she let it affect the quality of service she provided, no matter what importance I had given to the account.

At the end of the day I quietly came back to work and attended several meetings I had set up previously. My father and I didn't speak for weeks. Eventually my brother and sister, who also work in the business, sat down with him and me and a family-business consultant and hashed out a solution. Dad gave up his corner office and agreed to give advice only when asked, and we agreed to heed his concerns about the profitability of certain accounts by raising prices. He seems happier, but I have to admit that I haven't quite grown accustomed to the arrangement. During tough days I find myself phoning him for advice, and sometimes I wish he were close enough that we could huddle together and talk.