This study analyses the resilience of family businesses in a developing country like Cameroon during the covid-19 crisis by applying measures of association, regression analysis, and comparison tests to data collected by administering a questionnaire on a panel of 280 companies of which 196 are family businesses and 84 non-family businesses. The results show that throughout the pandemic period, family companies are more resilient in terms of financial and social performance relative to non-family businesses. We also find that among family businesses, the most successful are those with a family member as CEO or those whose management is dominated by the family controlling the firm. The results extend former research by showing that family leadership is a form of management that can provide responses to unexpected events that affect the company.