7 Common Questions About Leadership Asked in Interviews (And Sample Answers)
A business can’t do well without good leaders. Great leaders help their teams reach their goals by giving them clear direction and help. So, when people want jobs like supervisor, manager, or executive, interviewers often ask them questions to see if they have leadership skills. 7 Common Questions About Leadership
In this article, we’ll look at some of the most common leadership-related interview questions and help you think of good answers.
Questions about leadership that come up a lot in job interviews
Each interview will be different based on your job title and field. Here are some questions about leadership that you might be asked in your next interview:
The best answers to these questions show how you can lead and what skills you have that make you a good candidate for the job. Use the STAR method to talk about a time when you were a good leader and the task you had to do. What did you do to get the results you want? This can help you show the interviewer how you show leadership in a clear way.
1. What do you think are the most important skills for a leader to have?
Leadership skills are important in almost every job, but some skills may be more useful in certain situations. This question gives you a chance to talk about what you think makes a good leader. Show patience, active listening, empathy, a positive attitude, dependability, and the ability to build a team.
“I’m a good leader because I have good communication skills like active listening and using my body in a purposeful way. But if I want to lead by example, I need to hold myself accountable. At my last job, we made a new rule about how people should dress, and it was my job as the supervisor to make sure everyone followed it. My plan was to talk about the new policy, explain what kinds of new clothes were okay, and give a date when the policy would take full effect. I also heard my team’s worries about how comfortable the new dress code would be for working.
On my next shift, I wore the new uniform to show my team how to dress properly and how much more comfortable it was than the old one. So, my team felt better about switching to the new policy, and before the deadline, everyone started following the dress code.
2.What would you say about how you lead?
There are many different ways to lead, and they can all be useful in different places of work and on different teams. Look at the different kinds of leadership and decide which one fits your style the best. You might find that you like combining two styles, or that different situations call for different styles. If you know what these ways of leading are, you’ll be able to talk about how you lead better in your interview. Show how you led and what happened because of it.
“I think of myself as a transformational leader because I encourage my team to set goals that are in line with the company’s goals. At my last job, I met with my team every three months to talk about company goals and check on the progress of team goals as a whole. During one of our meetings, we realized that our most recent goal was too department-focused and that we had lost sight of how it helped the company as a whole. We changed the goal of our team so that we could fix the quality issues that were hurting our business.
I also met with each member of the team on their own to help them write down their own work goals. For example, one person on my team wanted to make twice as many deliverables, but we changed her goal so that she would make fewer deliverables with better quality assurance scores. This kind of transformational leadership helped my team reach a company-wide goal and improve the quality of our work as a whole.
How do you make sure that projects and tasks stay on track?
As a leader, it’s your job to make sure that your team knows its goals, meets deadlines, and does good work at the same time. You can show how well you can plan and use your time with this question. You might want to write down how you handle tasks, such as how you set goals, tell people what to expect, and keep track of your progress. Make sure you talk about the results of your process to show that you can lead a group to do important things.
When my team is given a group project, I always start by explaining what the project is for. Then, I give each team member their own tasks and due dates. When everyone on the team knows what the goals of the project are, I think they can better understand how their part affects the success of the project.
I have meetings with the whole team when we’re working on a project so that everyone can talk about how things are going. I try to keep the team going by praising their hard work. I also check in with each team member to see how things are going, talk about any risks or problems with deadlines, and give them more information. When people on a team check in with each other outside of a group meeting, they may feel more comfortable telling the group if they need more help. I’ve found that keeping my team in mind and making sure they do well keeps them focused and makes them feel like I’m behind them.
How can setting goals help you become a better leader?
Good leaders know how to set goals for themselves and for the people who work for them. Tools like SMART goals can help you set goals that are clear, measurable, doable, relevant, and have a deadline. Talk about how, when you’re in charge, you help your team set goals. You could talk about a time when you helped your team be more productive and reach their goal by using the SMART method. If you aren’t already in a leadership position, you can talk about how you set goals to practice leadership skills and why you think you have potential.
Example: “When my team knows exactly what they need to do and when they need to do it, they do their best work. I set daily, weekly, and monthly goals for my team using the SMART goal method, which helps them work more efficiently. For example, I wanted to make sure that my team could finish stock by the end of the month. I gave daily tasks to each team member based on what they were good at. I made a visual progress tracker so we could see how close we were to reaching our goal by the deadline.
I also met with my team often to make sure that our schedule was still doable, and when other tasks had to come first, I changed our weekly goals. Because of this SMART goal system, my team was able to finish inventory on time. This method helps me give clear instructions and keep my team moving. I think that SMART goals can be used for a wide range of team needs, and I plan to use this method to lead my future teams.
5. What do you do when people on your team disagree with you?
A good leader knows how to handle disagreements at work and can negotiate without making things worse. Your answer should show how you use your problem-solving and communication skills at work to settle disagreements. Use the STAR method to talk about a time when you helped solve a problem and kept your team on track.
Example: “My goal is to help my team talk things out and find a compromise when they disagree. At my last job, two of my team members did different things for their parts of the project. I asked each side to tell me what they thought and why they thought their way was better. I wanted people to talk and say things in a polite way. After each side made their case, I helped them think of ways that both cases could be used to make a single solution.
The members of this team were able to work together and see things from each other’s points of view because of this process. It also reminded them that they were both working toward the same goal and should figure out how to finish their tasks together in the best way.
As a leader, what was a hard decision you had to make?
Leaders who are good at what they do know how to think about their choices and how they might affect things. Your answer should show that you can solve problems, think critically, and make good choices. Show the interviewer how you decide what to do by talking about a situation from a past job. Make sure to explain how that decision turned out, and think about how you can use that experience to help you become a better leader in the future.
“I could have given my team a long weekend off once. Even though I knew how hard my team was working, we had to finish a big project by Monday. My first thought was to let them rest over the long weekend, but we would have had to hurry to get the work done. This choice could have hurt the quality of our work and slowed us down. Then I thought about not giving them the long weekend and telling them to keep coming to work on time. This choice would keep them from feeling like they had to rush, but they might feel overworked or underappreciated.
In the end, I decided not to give them the long weekend and told them how important it was to finish the project. That Friday, I gave them a thank you by ordering a catered lunch and telling them they could take next week off for a long weekend. I think this compromise showed that I cared about my team’s well-being and valued their reputation for doing good work on time.
7.Can you tell me about a problem you solved as a leader?
Part of being a good leader is being able to lead a group to success even when things go wrong, like when people don’t talk to each other or there aren’t enough resources. Use the STAR method for a situational question to show that you can recognize a problem and come up with a way to solve it. If you think your response to this challenge could have been better, you might want to talk about how you can learn from it to get ready for the next one.
Example: “We were getting close to the deadline for a project my team was working on, but we weren’t making the progress we needed to reach our goal. Many people on the team felt like they had too much to do, and the stress was making their work worse. To meet the deadline, I took on several tasks and worked with other people. My team felt supported because they knew I was taking on more work so they wouldn’t have to lower the quality of their own. We finished the job on time, and the client was pleased with how it turned out.
When I looked back at how the project was first planned, I saw that our schedule and workload were not reasonable. I will spend more time in the future talking about what people can expect and analyzing how the first plans were made. I want to keep my team motivated, so giving myself more time before starting a project can help me assign tasks better.
