Hi Julia,
a leadership story should focus on your experience building/leading the team and managing team dynamics in challenging situations; the core of the story should thus not be based on drive or impact. That’s due to the specific definition of the three PEI dimensions.
1) Leadership is about leading a whole team in challenging situation and showing team management skills. Questions include:
- Give me three examples of a time that you lead a group.
- What are some key lessons you have learned about motivating people?
Here you want to emphasize how you overcome a difficult situation leading a team.
2) Personal Impact is mainly based on persuading someone about doing/not doing something. Questions include:
- Tell me about a time that you persuaded your boss to go along with an idea you had.
- Tell me about a difficult situation where you had to rely on your communication skills.
Here you want to emphasize your influence on someone else, usually in disagreement with you.
3) Entrepreneurial Drive is about implementing something overcoming major difficulties. Examples include:
- What was a situation where you set a major goal and been able to achieve it?
- What has been your major accomplishment so far?
Here you want to emphasize the achievement you reached and the process that led you there.
Leadership is therefore different from drive, because you have to act as a team leader, driving the whole team to the result and managing internal team dynamics, while in a situation where you have to show drive you could act as a single person overcoming a major challenge.
Leadership is also different from impact as in both you deal with people, but while in the first you are leading a team, in the second you are actually influencing someone else (not necessarily a team and not necessarily as team leader).
Of course, some stories have a mix of the three dimensions together. In such stories, my recommendation is to emphasize one single dimension only, the one requested by the interviewer (if one of the others has necessarily to appear that's ok but it's presence should be marginal compared to the main one); otherwise the interviewer may think you are answering the wrong question (eg impact instead of leadership).
Hope this helps,
Francesco