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 Shanti Atkins, president and chief strategy officer of Navex Global, which handles ethics and compliance issues. She always asks herself, “If I had to decide in 30 seconds, what would I do?” The gut instinct is often right, she says.
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 child, were you in leadership roles?
Atkins: Yes, if there was an opportunity to be a leader — to be the class president or run the school play — I definitely wanted to do that. I had a desire to lead from a very young age.
Bryant: Tell me about your parents.
Atkins: My father’s a rheumatologist, and my mom was a nurse. They always told me I could do anything, and they got behind me 100 percent, no matter what. They were very strict, too, but they just thought very highly of me, and I thought very highly of them.
Bryant: Do you see any strands of your parents in your leadership and management style?
Atkins: Yes, in terms of demanding excellence from people but in a way that isn’t oppressive. It’s a compliment to demand excellence from somebody. And that’s how I always think of it.
Bryant: That’s a subtle note to hit just right, so that people take it the way you intend.
Atkins: I think you have to model it yourself. You have to show people that you apply the same standard to yourself in a way that’s healthy. You set a high standard for yourself because you believe in yourself. You celebrate successes and you acknowledge where you fell short, but then you still show that you’re very confident and have a lot of self-esteem. If you can model that, then I think people respond to it very well as a leadership style.
If I have to have a difficult conversation with someone, I might start by saying: “Look, I think you’re extraordinary at these things, and this is where I think you can go. So if you’re thinking five, 10 years ahead, I think that you can do better than this.” When you provide that context and perspective of someone’s potential and where someone may be going long term, they’re a lot more open and they feel that you care about them as a person.
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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 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.