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 Danielle Moss Lee, . To read the complete interview, check out other articles, and obtain subscription information, please click here.

Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times

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Tell me about your early years.

I grew up in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side, when it was a really diverse neighborhood, a version of New York that I love and often miss. I had a truly integrated childhood in a way that I’m not sure reflects the neighborhood in its current iteration.

I was part of some really great community-based organizations, and that’s where people first said to me that I could be a leader. I was a good student, but I didn’t get that same level of affirmation in school.

And I had some amazing opportunities, including from my church and the Y.M.C.A., ironically. I came in one day and the director said, “Do you want to go to Japan?” A number of Y’s were working with a philanthropist to send some young people abroad. So I ended up spending five weeks in Tokyo as a 15-year-old. There were some really life-changing experiences that just popped up because someone saw something in me.

Did you take on leadership roles in these after-school programs?

I was president of the Baptist Youth Fellowship at my church, sat on my school’s disciplinary committee, and I was chief justice of the Y’s Youth and Government Program.

As I was growing up, my mother always had leadership roles in her jobs, and she often took me to work. So it just seemed natural for me, after seeing how she interacted with her team, and how compassionate she was. It just seemed like that’s what you do.

How else did she influence you?

She was a librarian by training, and we always had tons of books around, so I was reading at a pretty high level early on. I definitely came from a family that believed you were made more humane through education, rather than pursuing education with this idea that there was going to be a big payoff. I never aspired to be rich.

How has your leadership style evolved?

Early on, it’s easy to think that the people you work with all share our goals, share our values and share our work ethic. But I’ve learned not to take anything for granted. You can’t assume that everybody’s moving in the same direction. You can’t assume that people want you to win and be successful.

I would also say that I’m pretty confident now as a leader. I’m not looking for anyone to validate that for me. I’ve had staff follow me from different organizations, so that must mean I’m doing something right.

I’m also more gentle with myself. Sometimes you see something in a candidate and you make an offer, and it turns out to be a disaster. Sometimes you see something that’s not there, and your mind kind of fills in the blanks of the conversation.

And some people are really good at gaming the system. You might invest in someone, and they have a different agenda than what they’ve shared with you. People talk a lot about horrible bosses. People don’t really talk about horrible employees and the stress that comes from having to manage those situations.

If you have a difficult person on your staff, people are watching the dynamics of how you handle conflict. And if you let that person persist and make everyone else around them miserable, that’s also a reflection on your leadership. So I’ve learned to act quickly. We can’t have our young people in the presence of people who don’t have their best interest at heart.

I’ve also learned that patience is not wasting time. Patience is about building the foundation to do the things that matter. You have to have some wins in there, of course, but you also have to pace yourself.

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To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.

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 of hundreds of business leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.