Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Clara Lippert Glenn, C.E.O. of the Oxford Princeton Program, which offers training for energy industry professionals. She says her husband’s death at the age of 56 influenced her change in style to promote greater work-life balance.
To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.
Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times
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Bryant: When you were a kid, were you in leadership roles?
Glenn: Not at all. The complete opposite. I was shy, introverted. You could make me blush just by saying my name. I just was not comfortable in my skin. I was the one who would sit in the middle of the classroom — never in the front, never in the back. I would rarely raise my hand. I didn’t like to draw attention to myself. In college, I probably really started to come out of my shell.
Bryant: How and why?
Glenn: I’m not really sure. I became more aware that there were things I should be proud that I could do. You start to become familiar with what you’re good at, and decide to take more charge of your life.
Bryant: What did you study?
Glenn: I was a language major. I studied three languages, but my major was Russian. My plan was to go work for the United Nations and single-handedly help solve the cold war. And when I graduated, the U.N. wanted no part of me. In fact, who wants a Russian major? Nobody did, except for the C.I.A., which was convinced that I could sit in a little cubicle and translate articles all day long, which I had no desire to do.
The life lesson was that it’s not what you think it’s going to be. So what’s your Plan B, and how quickly can you shift to Plan B? I had to shift really quickly. I did not have a Plan B. I was graduating, and I needed one. I had student loans to pay off. Then a great professor said to me: “You’re good at languages. You seem to like business. Why don’t you go get a business degree, but one that’s international?” I thought, “Well, there’s an idea.”
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Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times‘ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews with more than 70 leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. His next book, Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, will also be published by Times Books (January 2014). To contact him, please click here.