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 Val DiFebo, chief executive of Deutsch NY, the advertising agency. She challenges her colleagues to “be direct.”

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: Were you in leadership roles when you were a kid?

DiFebo: Well, I have three sisters, and at the largest expanse we’re seven years apart. I was the oldest, and any time a decision had to be made, they looked to me.

Bryant: And in high school?

DiFebo: I was elected to the student government, and I did it because I wanted to make things happen. I would listen to what people in my class wanted, and I would go to meetings with administrators and say, “The girls want a bus to go to the soccer match,” or whatever. In my senior year, I was elected school president, and it was based on my reputation of not being afraid to tell them what we needed or what we wanted. It was almost as if I was on a debate team. I’d say: “Here’s why we want to do it, here’s how you would do it, here’s how it would impact everyone. Why can’t we do it?” Sometimes they had to agree.

Bryant: What about your parents’ influence?

DiFebo: It’s partially their personality, but also from growing up in the Bronx. My parents were of Italian descent, and we were a blue-collar, hard-working family. The piece that is very Bronx-like is street smarts: how to be aware of things, how to read body language, how to look around at all times so you knew what was happening.

Bryant: And those would be explicit discussions?

DiFebo: Yes. They’d say: “Did you see the way they looked at you? They were nodding their head, but you could tell by watching their eyebrows that they really didn’t like your idea.” And my parents were extremely straightforward. So when you’ve got something on your mind, tell it to me straight. Don’t sugarcoat it. Tell me what you’ve got to say and we’ll get there faster.

Bryant: What was your first management role?

DiFebo: I was about 26 and oversaw a group in media planning. The biggest challenge was being the same age or younger than my counterparts, and then getting the nod to be in a management position.

Bryant: So what was your best strategy for handling that?

DiFebo: The thing that worked most often for me was making sure people got credit for their work, so they felt like they had a voice and a hand in creating the material. That got me a lot of credit with the team. That works, and it still works.

Bryant: Were there key leadership lessons you’ve learned from mentors over the years?

DiFebo: Donny Deutsch taught me a lot about giving direct, sometimes negative, feedback. He might say, “This doesn’t make any sense at all,” but it was never a judgment on your skills or your intellect. It’s just a reaction to work you put in front of him. Then he would come by two minutes later and ask about something else: “Can I ask your advice? What do you think I should do about this?” So he’d give you a big reinforcement that he didn’t think any less of you than he did five minutes ago; it’s just that he didn’t like what you put in front of him. That was a great lesson, because having people believe that you respect their opinion is really important.

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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 next book, Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, will also be published by Times Books (January 2014). To contact him, please click here.