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 Joel Peterson, chairman of JetBlue Airways and founder of Peterson Partners, an investment firm. He observes. “You have to really be at home with yourself. If you have these driving needs to show off or be heard or whatever, then that kind of overwhelms the process,” 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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Were you in leadership roles or doing entrepreneurial things when you were younger?

We lived in a little town in central Michigan. I grew vegetables when I was 11 years old, and hired my little brother to deliver them around the neighborhood. That was my first entrepreneurial experience.

I always had a job. We were very middle class. My father was a geneticist, and biology professors didn’t make much money, so we had to work if we wanted spending money. I had a paper route, I was a dishwasher and a busboy. Between high school and college, I worked in a biochemistry lab, and I met these Ph.D. students who had messy apartments and wanted them cleaned. So I hired some people and started a business doing that.

Tell me more about your parents. How have they influenced your leadership style?

My mother was a homemaker and was the kindest person I’ve ever known. She was very social, and never said an ill word about another human being. My father was a bit of an introvert. He liked spending time with his plants and writing papers. I see elements of both of them in me, but I don’t think I’m like either of them.

What about early leadership roles for you?

I’ve always ended up in leadership roles. I remember being the safety patrol captain, which was a big deal in sixth grade. I became student body president in junior high school, and I was the student body president in college.

It wasn’t about me saying, “I want to be the leader.” If you get people rallying around a cause or something that needs to be done, you end up leading that cause, whether you want to or not.

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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 with more than 70 leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.