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 Deborah Harmon, chief executive of Artemis Real Estate Partners. “If you play to people’s strengths, you create a team of complementary skill sets. It’s like a puzzle.”

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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Were you in leadership roles or doing entrepreneurial things when you were younger?

I wish I could tell you I ran a lemonade stand at the age of 10, but I didn’t. My mother would always tell me that I had so much energy that she didn’t know what to do with me. I also loved winning, and the natural place that played out for me was in sports. In high school, I played three sports — field hockey, basketball and tennis — and in college I played tennis and lacrosse.

I loved team sports. The collective victory was always more powerful for me. If I had a choice between playing singles and doubles tennis, I played doubles.

Tell me about your parents.

It was really my parents who taught me the foundational traits of a leader: confidence, grit and a real desire to make a difference. And I come from a family, going back to my great-grandmother, of working mothers and entrepreneurs. I watched my mother raise a family of three kids. And when I was in high school, she decided to become an independent theater producer, and then worked her way from Off Broadway to Broadway as a producer. I watched how hard it was, and she really taught me that there is no such thing as work-life balance. The concept of “having it all” is possible, just rarely at the same time.

My father was an investment banker, and he loved the different businesses he worked with. He would talk to me about his work, and he always brought me into the office from a young age. He would also say that you don’t have to have the highest I.Q. in the room, but if you’re willing to work harder than everyone else, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish.

He also taught me an important lesson about managing people. When we were young and talking during family dinners, he would always start the conversation by saying, “What was the most difficult problem you had today?” And after we talked, he would say, “How could you have handled this differently?” Through his questioning, he helped us become our own problem solvers, and to find something positive in every situation. And then he would always say, “What’s the best thing that happened to you today?”

Did you know what you wanted to do when you graduated from college?

I always wanted to run my own business, so my career was a series of experiences to get to the point where I could do that. But I had no idea I was going to end up in the real estate industry.

My first job after college was at Banker’s Trust. They had an extraordinary corporate-finance training program — they flew professors in, and really gave you a mini business school. I wanted to go into the corporate division, working with companies like AT&T and IBM. But I was sent to work with small, private companies. I was devastated at first, but then I figured, let’s see what happens.

It turned out to be the perfect training if you want to run a business, because you’re analyzing companies and figuring out why one company works and another doesn’t. I absolutely loved it. Then the bank moved me to real estate. For me, real estate was like going to Siberia in those days, and I didn’t have any interest in it. The company knew it was a tough transition, so they said they’d pay to send me to business school while I was working.

What I learned, and what I teach my children, is that it’s not about getting the most glamorous or the most prestigious jobs. What matters most is where you can learn and grow and have the most responsibility.

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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.