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 Mark B. Templeton, president and C.E.O. of Citrix, the Internet software company.
To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.
Photo: Earl Wilson/The New York Times
Bryant: You’ve been the chief executive of Citrix since 1999. That’s a long tenure compared to most C.E.O.s.
Templeton: I didn’t want to be C.E.O. at first. I had no interest, and it was kind of accidental. A lot of people I meet who have the title also have the ambition that goes with it and the desire to be C.E.O. But I’ve never really had that ambition in my life. I think there’s a bit of a lesson in it. Just generally in my career — and I’ve seen it in some team sports I’ve played, like lacrosse and soccer — the guy who always says “give me the ball” is usually the one who probably shouldn’t have the ball. It’s the guy who plays his position and is just doing his job that oftentimes is the guy you should give the ball to.
Bryant: Why didn’t you have the ambition for the top job?
Templeton: It was probably a combination of two things. Before Citrix, I had a number of start-up experiences. One of them was as C.E.O., and we ran out of money and I had to lay off about 30 people. I had a pretty deep scar from that experience, and I thought, “O.K., that’s not for me.” I decided that focusing on marketing and telling stories around products and understanding customers was really what I was best at.
The other reason was that we were a public company and I didn’t really feel I was qualified to be C.E.O. Again, there’s a lesson here. You try as a manager to never put people in situations where it’s too big a stretch for them, because it often doesn’t work out too well. Usually when people end up there, it’s because the person who really wants the job has overestimated their own capabilities, or management has overimagined someone’s capabilities and puts them there mistakenly. I didn’t feel I was qualified.
And there was a time, a small gap, when I lost the C.E.O job. In the June quarter of 2000, we really missed our expectations, and by then I’d been C.E.O. for six quarters and I was learning a lot, especially about working with the board. I had not kept the board informed about what was going on and some of the struggles we were having, and I was trying to carry all of it myself, which is what green leaders do. After we missed our expectations hugely, the board decided we would do a public search for a replacement, and I was demoted to president and senior executive officer. I deserved that because that’s part of the game, being held accountable.
So we did a public search for a replacement and we had a candidate, but the board decided they didn’t like him. That was about six months in. Then we had a second one, but the board decided that I was actually a viable candidate again. They asked me if I’d be interested in having my title back. It took me about a microsecond to say yes.
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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. To contact him, please click here.