Hi! McKinsey will be specific regarding the question (i.e. your story will cover mainly one of the skills you highlighted). It is also worth noting that the broad skills (e.g. leadership) can be broken down even further. In the case of leadership, we can think of the ability to:
- Influence people towards a common goal
- Deal with conflict and complexity
- Get input from multiple stakeholders
In fact, you may get questions specifically about dealing with conflict/difficult people, for example. It is really important to capture what your interviewer wants you to focus on.
A common mistake in PEI is talking generically/theoretically about a skill (e.g."to be a great leader it is important to inspire people towards a common goal"), or focusing on the role of the team as a whole. The interviewer wants to see how you behaved, how other people reacted, how you responsed, what actions you took in face of to adversity, what you learned, and how you applied the learnings in the future. Trying to cover too many skills in one question increases the risk you will talk superficially about your actions.
Does that answer your question? Feel free to continue the conversation.
Best of luck!
Bernardo
(edited)