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 Saundra Pelletier, chief executive of WomanCare Global, a nonprofit provider of health care products. Ms. Pelletier is also C.E.O. of Evofem Inc., a biotechnology company. She says, “I love organized chaos. We’re willing to roll and turn and twist and evolve, but some people don’t like that.”
To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.
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Were you in leadership roles growing up?
I grew up in Caribou, Me. It’s a small rural town and a farming community. My mother cared very passionately that I learned no domestic skills — no cooking and no cleaning — because, she said, “Those will never get you out of Caribou, and I want you to do things like balance a checkbook.” I have a picture of me in kindergarten, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. In junior high, when they said girls should take sewing and cooking, I signed up for arc welding and fly tying. Leadership was a little bit put upon me by her, but I embraced it.
In high school, I was passionate about creating a different mind-set around women and the worth of women and girls because there was a sense that there were only domestic choices: who you married and how many kids you would have.
So I tried to encourage girls to create the life that they want. That’s something I still carry with me. I have a big invisible chip on my shoulder around deciding what balance is for you and what success is. Don’t apologize for it, and you can have more than just one good aspect of life.
Why did your mother believe so strongly in that?
She said that she allowed herself to be capped, and that she wanted to make sure I set my own bar higher. She used to say: “When you graduate from high school, make sure you leave and don’t ever come back. If you want me to visit you, I’ll come visit you. Make enough money so that wherever that is, you can fly me there.”
What were your career aspirations early on?
I wanted to do television news. But I was offered a job by G.D. Searle. They had launched the first birth control pill in the United States. Fifteen years later, I had maneuvered my way up the corporate ladder to running a global franchise focused on women’s health.
What were some early lessons on managing people?
I recognized how critical it was to create the right environment. I cared about creating sort of a family unit, and I think that’s been one of my critical success factors throughout my career. I believe that people who work for me feel that no matter what, I will defend and support them.
But I also learned that you can’t cut the tail half off. If you’ve got to make a tough decision about somebody, make it fast. Do it quick. If you need to replace people, let them go, because the good people you have are never going to respect you if you keep passengers. You’ve got to have drivers. Don’t let passengers stay.
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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.comthat 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 more recent book, Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, was also also published by Times Books (January 2014). To contact him, please click here.