Leadership Examples

Question

Hi,

I was wondering if somebody could give me concrete examples of answers to the question "Tell me of a situation when you showed leadership". I was a teacher, tutor and mentor for years, as teenager I was a team captain for a short while, and I have managed my small office team of three since 2017... and yet a way of answering that question escapes me. How concrete do they want it? That I took decisions? To describe the specific consequences or impact of those decisions? What type?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Hi there,

Being asked for a leadership story you should focus on your best experience leading a team (of any size), either on a personal or professional situation. Keys here:

You leading style is and how you inspire the team to reach a challenging goal
Your teamwork skills to coordinate work and make everyone shine
Your ability to understand and act on team dynamics, even the personal ones (motivations, frustrations)

I hope this helps.

Alberto

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Answer 2

Hi,

You should be very specific in describing the Actions that you've taken to solve the problem. Overall approach should be the following:

1 sentence summary of the story
The context - 1-2 sentences
The problem - 1 sentence
Actions that you've taken to solve it - 4-6 actions 1 sentence each
Measurable Impact - 1 sentence

Best

Answer 3

Hi,

It sounds like you a number of great roles that I sense you can pull lots of great leadership examples from.

To answer your question directly: Your interviewer expects that you provide very concrete and clear examples of a leadership example. So here's what you need to do:

Think of an example that truly demonstrates you taking leadership. An example where you ran a team successfully to a specific goal or through a difficult challenge. The interviewer does not want to hear that you've been in a leadership position, but instead that you have evidence of being an effective leader. So, saying you were responsible for a large team is not good enough because you may not have been very good at it :). But explaining that you led that large team to deliver a multi-month project through major challenges is impressive
Summarise at a high-level
1. who you led
2. what you led them to do
3. what was difficult about it
4. what you did to be successful
5. Bonus: what about you specifically made it successful (e.g. your confidence, tenacity, etc.)
And then be prepared to go into detail with your interviewer:
1. Explain what you did, said, and thought. Remember, this is not about your team, it is about you so get comfortable using words like "I did...", "I said...", "I figured out that...", etc.
2. Describe specific difficult moments and how you overcame it (again, it's all about what you did)
3. Explain any planning you did beforehand and why
4. Share and celebrate the outcome (which should be positive) and maybe any learnings or things you would do better.

All the best!