Leadership interview process

Interview Questions

Problem Solving & Decision Making

1. Tell me about a time when you changed your priorities to meet others’ expectations?
2. Tell me about a time when you had to change your point of view or your plans to take into account new information or changing priorities?
3. Describe a decision you made that wasn't popular and how you handled implementing it.
4. Describe a complex problem that you have had to deal with. What approach did you take? What was the outcome? What do you wish you had done differently?
5. Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without all the information you needed. How did you handle it?
6. Give me an example of a time when you had to be quick in coming to a decision. What obstacles did you face?
7. What is the most difficult decision you’ve ever had to make at work? How did you arrive at your decision? What was the result?
8. Give me an example of a business decision you made that you ultimately regretted. What happened?
9. Tell me of a time when you have felt it appropriate to call on others before making a decision.
10. Tell me of a time when you have had to justify a decision you have made.
11. What would you consider to be the most important decisions which you have had to make regularly in your job? What made them good decisions?
12. Give an example of when you have brought together two conflicting parties
13. Tell me about the last time something significant didn’t go according to plan at work. 1. What was your role? 2. What was the outcome? 3. What did you learn?

Influencing & Engagement

1. When in your career to date have you been tasked with bringing a diverse group of people including senior players on board to a new policy or initiative?
   1. What steps did you take to engage with the differing audiences?
2. Describe an occasion when you needed to adopt a new approach to get agreement from others
3. Tell me about a time when you found it very difficult to get the agreement of others to an important proposal
4. Tell me about a time when you have won someone round to your way of thinking.
5. Have you ever had to modify your personal style to achieve results with a difficult individual or group?
6. What have you done to get things to happen in your organisation?
7. How do you motivate others?
8. Describe a time when you had to influence someone that did not report to you.
   1. What went well and what would you do differently?
9. Have you ever had to “sell” an idea to your coworkers or group?
   1. How did you do it?
   2. What were the results?
10. Describe a situation where you had difficulty with another colleague/team member? What, if anything, did you do to resolve these difficulties?
11. Have you ever been in a situation where you demonstrated too much concern for others? What did you do? How did this affect your own work? What did you learn from the experience?
12. Learning to compromise can be important when trying to resolve a problem. Can you tell me about a time when you were able to resolve a difficult situation by finding some middle ground?

Results Orientation

1. Tell us about a project where you have persisted in spite of obstacles
2. Tell me about a time when you had to deliver results in the face of major challenges.
3. Tell us about a major achievement and how you went about it.
4. Describe a time when you experienced setbacks in your work.
5. How have you gone about setting short-term goals and long-term goals for yourself or your team?
   1. What steps did you take along the way to keep yourself/team accountable? 6. Where have you been most successful in your job or career?
   2. How do you measure that success?
6. Describe a particularly difficult project where it was a challenge to get employees to take ownership and be committed to achieving predetermined objectives. a. What did you do to encourage ownership?
7. How do you approach the accountability/responsibility issue with respect to team goals versus individual performance goals? Use examples to demonstrate.
8. Explain how you have gained customer commitment to a proposal.
9. Provide an example of the most significant goal you have achieved.
   1. How did you achieve this goal? What obstacles did you meet, how did you overcome these?
10. Describe a time when you demonstrated confidence and assertiveness in your own viewpoint, even if opposition was expressed by others.

Strategic Vision/Thinking

1. Tell me of a time when you have influenced strategy.
2. Can you tell me about a time when you implemented a plan that had long-term implications?
3. Can you give me an example of a time when you developed a mission statement?
4. Tell me how you find out about developments in the marketplace and within the organisation and the impact they may have.
5. Tell me how your directorate strategy fits with organisational goals and values.
6. Tell me how you have gone about planning for the future of your unit/ department.
7. Describe a strategic change you have recently implemented.
8. Describe a challenge or opportunity you identified based on your industry knowledge, and how you developed a strategy to respond to it.
9. Describe a time when you used your business knowledge to understand a specific situation of the department.
10. Describe a time when you created a strategy to achieve a longer term department objective.
11. How do you innovate?
12. How did you drive business growth?
13. How have you previously turned your strategic vision into a tactical plan?

Adaptability/Honesty/Integrity

1. Describe a situation in which you embraced a new system, process, technology, or idea at work that was a major departure from the old way of doing things.
2. Tell me about the biggest change that you have had to deal with.
   1. How did you adapt to that change?
3. Can you describe a time when you experienced/led rapid change? a. How did you handle the situation?
4. Tell me about a business situation when you felt honesty was inappropriate.
   1. Why?
   2. What did you do?
5. Discuss a time when your integrity was challenged.
   1. How did you handle it?
6. What have you learned from your mistakes?
7. Give me examples of how you have acted with integrity (walked your talk) in your job/work relationship.
8. Would those you've worked with describe you as a person of integrity? Why did they reach that conclusion?

Leadership

1. What are the most important values you demonstrate as a leader?
2. What is the toughest group that you have ever had to lead?
   1. What were the obstacles?
   2. How did you handle the situation?
3. What has been your greatest leadership achievement in a professional environment? Talk through the steps you took to reach it.
4. How do you challenge underperformers?
5. How did you embed (e.g. appraisal objectives, restructuring, development needs, etc.) through your managers and team leaders to their team members?
6. What have been the greatest obstacles you have faced in building/growing a team?
7. Describe a situation where your leadership was able to motivate your team to improve their performance.
   1. What actions were the most effective?
8. Give me an example of a time when you felt you led by example.
   1. What did you do and how did others react?
9. Give me an example of someone that you coached and developed and were able to promote.
   1. What did you work on with them to make it happen?
10. Can you describe something that challenged you as a leader? How did the challenge change you?
11. Give me an example of a difficult people situation that you have had to handle within your team.
12. Tell me about an occasion when you've had to gain the co-operation of people who don't work for you.
13. How do you set objectives for you team?

Culture

1. Tell me about a time in the last week when you’ve been satisfied, energized, and productive at work. What were you doing?
2. What are the three things that are most important to you in a job?
3. How would you describe yourself in one word?
4. Tell me about a time when you learned something unexpected, which has since proved useful.
5. What type of culture do you thrive in? (Does the response reflect our organizational culture?)
6. What values are you drawn to and what’s your ideal workplace?
7. How would you describe our culture based on what you’ve seen?
8. What best practices would you bring with you from another organization?
   1. Do you see yourself being able to implement these best practices in our environment?
9. Tell me about a time when you worked with/for an organization where you felt you were not a strong culture fit.
   1. Why was it a bad fit?
10. When in a stressful environment, what type of coping skills do you have to overcome the pressures faced and achieve the desired outcomes?
11. Describe a situation where you picked yourself up from a set back.
    1. What did you do?
    2. What did you learn from this experience?
12. Can you describe a time where you were able to respond to both home and work demands in your life?
    1. How did you deal with the situation?

Communication and Collaboration

1. Can you share an experience where a project dramatically shifted directions at the last minute? What did you do?
2. Has there been a time when you had to communicate a difficult issue?
3. Describe a time when your communication skills made a difference in a situation. What was it about your communication skills and how you approached the problem or task that helped?
4. What was the toughest communication situation you've had to deal with? Discuss.
5. Describe a situation where you failed to communicate properly and what you believe you did wrong in this situation.
   1. Looking back at it, what would you have changed and how may have that affected the outcome?
6. Describe how you have communicated the vision/ goals of the organisation to your team.
7. Does your communication style change under pressure or stress? Describe, using specific examples.
8. Describe a time when you communicated some unpleasant feelings to your boss. What was the outcome?
9. How would you describe your communication style? How does this help you in a given role?
10. Tell us about your preferred role when involved in a team. In other words, what role are you most likely to adopt and why?
11. Can you demonstrate a time when your communication skills have let you down?
    1. What did you learn from this?
    2. How did you rectify this?

Change Leadership

1. Tell me about a time when you thought that the standard way of doing things might not be the best way, and you were responsible for driving change in a line of business or company.
   1. What led you to believe this? What was the business situation or problem?
   2. How did you create and communicate your new solution?
   3. Why did you do it this way?
   4. What issues did you run into with other people when trying to get things done?
   5. Were you able to encourage others to see your suggested change as a positive thing — although perhaps your idea impacted their work in a significant way?
   6. What was the overall result?
2. What is the most significant change that you brought to an organization?
3. Give me an example of how you have managed the concerns of your team during times of uncertainty/change.
4. Describe how you have managed a recent change within your team.
   1. How did you get colleagues on board with your change?
   2. How would or did you deal with colleagues that didn’t want to adopt the change?
5. How have you maintained the pace of change in previous change programmes?
6. Tell me of a time when you have use a period of change to your advantage
7. Give me an example of where a change has impacted on your customer relationship.
8. Tell me about a time when you've personally had to handle significant change.
9. Describe a time of uncertainty or change you have faced.
10. Tell me how you have accommodated business change in your unit's activities.
11. Describe a time when pressures threatened your ability to work effectively.

Interview for Vision, Strategy, Tactics, and Judgement

There are three facets and one binding force that I use to interview senior leaders. They are, briefly: VISION: Can they describe an ambitious and almost impossible future? Do I believe their description of this impossible future place? Does this vision stand up to my dumb and uninformed questions or does it crumble? STRATEGY: Do they have the ability to design the big rocks that need to be taken to achieve the vision? If the VISION is the place at the end of long journey, can they design the signs on the road that get us there? Do these signs appear achievable? And considered? Or fully yolo? TACTICS: Can they reliably follow the signs on the road? All the time? Without fail? Every leader has some different combination of the three attributes. Do they know their combo? Do the know why it’s important that the understand this? Cool. The binding force that ties these three facets together is JUDGEMENT. Judgement is the means by which they make decisions. They use their experience combined with their values to make a choice. Can I see their judgement? Does it hold together? Will it fit with my team? There’s a couple of chapters on this topic in the new book. (I nuke most candidates on judgment.) – Source