CEO’s childhood: ‘I was always getting spanked’

There is no CEO guidebook that tells you how to become a leader. So how do men and women get to the corner office? By learning lessons as they go through life. Author and MSNBC.com contributor Eve Tahmincioglu interviewed more than 50 leaders for her new book, “From the Sandbox to the Corner Office,” asking them about lessons they learned from childhood to their early career days. Here’s an excerpt:

Chapter 1

Parents — Less Carrot, More Stick

Richard Parsons, CEO of Time Warner
Richard Parsons’ dad was the principal disciplinarian in his house and not one to think sparing the rod was a good idea, even giving the New York City school system permission to spank the young Parsons. His father used a switch from a tree for his childhood misdeeds because, Parsons believes, it would sting but not cause the kind of damage a belt might, for example. “I got more spankings than the other four kids together. I was always getting spanked, mainly because of misbehavior at school, for cutting up.”

He was also punished often in other ways. On one occasion, when he was 10, Parsons was caught shoplifting and his dad grounded him for a month for that offense. “Being grounded to me was terrible. I loved being outside.” When you did something wrong at the Parsons home, you paid for it.

Leader lowdown Richard Parsons — Date of birth: April 4, 1948 — Dream job: Piano player — Childhood hero: Duke Snider — Biggest fear: Spiders

But after one particularly terrible misdeed, when most parents would probably break under the enormity of a child’s action, his dad kept his restraint. At age 7, Parsons was playing with matches and burned the family home to the ground. His mother had to go to the hospital with minor burns after rushing into the house to save his younger siblings. No one was seriously hurt, but the family had to move in with grandparents for four months until the home was rebuilt. His dad’s response: “Don’t do it again.”

Parsons says his father “understood the gravity of the situation and he knew I understood it as well. You punish someone when you are trying to make a point, trying to drive it home or reinforce some sort of discipline, morality, or message. He had the sense that punishing me at the time would serve no purpose other than an expression of his outrage.”

CNBC VIDEO Spanking and success – are they related? Oct. 9: Most successful CEOs said they were spanked as children. "On the Money's" Dylan Ratigan reports. CNBC

When Parsons turned 13, his dad announced that the spankings and punishments would now stop. “It was almost like a religious experience,” he recalls. “He tells me, ‘Today you’re a man and I expect you to start acting like one.’ I more or less did,” he quips. “The experience was odd. I was thinking, ‘What’s different today?’ But that was my dad’s whole orientation. He looked at life as steps on stairs. I was moving a step up in the maturation process.”

And his father also subscribed to the “corral” method of parenting, not the lead-around-on-a-leash approach. He wanted his children to go out there and figure it out by themselves, even though they might bump into some fences now and then. For example, when Parsons was 16, he decided he wanted to go to the University of Hawaii instead of a college nearby. “My mother told my father, ‘Larry, we can’t let this 16-year-old go to Hawaii, for goodness’ sake.’ My father said, ‘Isabel, the boy wants to go to Hawaii. Let him go.’ ”

Parsons looks back on his youth with fondness, and believes he’s been able to succeed in his life because his parents loved him so deeply. His mother, who was a homemaker when he was growing up, would always take a job at the Ideal Toy Co. starting in late September working three nights a week going into the Christmas season so the parents would have extra money to buy gifts for the kids.

“It was just clear to me that both my parents were focused on my well-being, my happiness, my prospects for success, satisfaction, contentment,” he explains. “Love is an intangible thing. There are people who think they are loved by their parents but don’t feel it. I felt it.” That feeling of love he got from his parents has helped him as a leader because, he believes, “I never needed to be revered.”

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