Share an example of a time when you had to make a difficult decision that required balancing various stakeholder interests
Why were the stakeholder interests not aligned? How did you prioritize and resolve the competing concerns?
Interview Question Bank
This page is your go-to spot if you're looking to up your game with some killer questions. From figuring out if you're "Right. A lot" to getting into the nitty-gritty of "Dive Deep", we've got you covered. Ever thought about how to "Think Big" or just stay super "Curious"? We've got questions for that too. Dive in, challenge yourself, and boost your chances of nailing your next interview!
Category: Are Right. A lot
They have strong judgement and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to invalidate their beliefs.
Tell me about a time when you had to change your initial decision based on new information or input from others.
How did you discover the new information? What was the impact of the change? What did you learn?
Tell me about a time when you did not have enough data to make the right decision.
What did you do? What path did you path? Did the decision turn out to be right?
Tell me about a strategic decision you had to make without clear data or benchmarks.
How did you make your final decision? What alternative did you consider? What were the tradeoffs of each? How did you mitigate risk?
Tell me about a time when you made a difficult decision with input from different sources.
What was the situation and how did you arrive at your decision? Did the decision turn out to be the correct one? Why or why not?
Tell me about a time when you made a bad decision.
What was the impact of the decision? What did you learn? How have you applied what you learned?
Tell me about a time when you discovered that your idea was not the best course of action.
What was your idea? Why was the idea not the best course of action? How did you find out it was not the correct path? What was the best course of action? Who provided it? What did you learn?
Describe a time when you brought different perspectives together to solve a problem.
What types of different perspectives were represented? How did you seek out different points of view? What was the outcome? Were there any key learnings? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything different?
Describe a situation where you had to analyze complex information to make an important decision.
What was your thought process, and how did you arrive at your final decision?
Tell me about a time when you had to build consensus among team members with conflicting opinions.
How did you facilitate the discussion and arrive at an agreement?
Category: Bias for Action
Speed matters. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
Give me an example of a calculated risk that you have taken where speed was critical.
What was the situation and how did you handle it? What steps did you take to mitigate risk? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done differently.
Tell me about a time when you worked against tight deadlines and did not have time to consider all options when making a decision.
How much time did you have? What approach did you take? What did you learn from the situation?
Describe a situation where you made an important business decision without consulting your manager.
What was the situation and how did it turn out? Would you have done anything differently?
Tell me about a time when you had to gather information and respond immediately to a situation.
What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?
Give me an example of when you had to make an important decision and had to decide between moving forward or gathering more information.
What did you do? What was the outcome? What information is necessary for you to have before acting?
Tell me about a time when you felt your team was not moving to action quickly enough.
What was the situation? What did you do? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time when you were able to remove a serious roadblock preventing your team from making progress.
What was the barrier? How were you able to remove it? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know, would you have done anything differently?
Category: Customer Obsession
Start with the customer and work backwards. Work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Put the customer first.
Describe a difficult interaction you had with a customer.
How did you deal with it? What was the outcome? How would you handle it differently?
Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond for a customer.
Why did you do it? How did the customer respond? What was the outcome?
Give me an example of when you were able to anticipate a customer need with a solution they didn't know they needed or wanted yet.
How did you know they needed this? How did they respond?
Give me an example of a time when you asked for customer feedback.
How did you use that feedback to drive innovation and improvement. How did they respond?
Tell me about a time when you evaluated the customer experience of your product or service.
What did you do? What was the result?
Tell me about a time when a customer came to you for something that would not actually address their need.
How did you approach the situation? What was the result?
Sometimes customer makes unreasonable requests. Tell me about a time when you had to push back on a customer request.
What did you say or do to respond to that request?
Tell me about a time when you had to balance the needs of the customer with the needs of the business.
What did you do? What was the result?
Category: Deliver Results
Focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
Tell me about a time when you not only met a goal, but exceeded expectations.
How were you able to do it? What challenges did you have to overcome?
Give me an example of a time when you were able to deliver an important project under a tight deadline.
What sacrifices did you have to make to meet the deadline? How they impact the final deliverable? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time when you had significant, unanticipated obstacles to overcome in achieving a key goal.
What was the obstacle? Were you eventually successful? Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?
Tell me about a time when you or your team were more than halfway to meeting a goal when you realized it might not be the right goal or may have unintended consequences.
What was the situation? What did you do? What was the outcome? Looking back, would you have done anything differently.
Give me an example of a mission or goal you did not think was achievable.
What was it and how did you help your team try and achieve it? Were you successful in the end? Looking back, would you have done anything differently?
Tell me about a time when you dd not effectively manage your projects and something was not completed on time.
What was the impact? What approaches do you use to make sure you are focusing on the right deliverables when you have several competing priorities?
It can be difficult to set goals for a team that are challenging, yet achievable.
Tell me about a time when you had the right balance. How did you approach the goals? What was the outcome?
Category: Dive Deep
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are sceptical when metrics and anecdotes differ. No task is beneath them.
Tell me about a time you had to do an in-depth analysis of a situation or project.
What were the critical parts of your analysis? Ultimately what was your conclusion?
Tell me about the most complex analysis you have worked on
What made it complex? What tools did you use to manage the complexity? Ultimately what decision were you able to make due to your analysis?
Tell me about a time you used customer data to develop a product or business insight
What was the insight? How did you use it?
Category: Earn Trust
Listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing.
Tell me about a time when you had to communicate a change in direction that you anticipated people would have concerns with.
What did you do to understand the concerns and mitigate them? Were there any changes you made along the way after hearing those concerns? How did you handle questions and/or resistance? Were you able to get people comfortable with the change?
Give me an example of a tough or critical piece of feedback you received.
What was it and what did you do about it?
Describe a time when you needed to influence a peer who had a differing opinion about a shared goal.
What did you do? What was the outcome?
Give me an example of a time when you were not able to meet a commitment.
What was the commitment and what were the obstacles that prevented success? What was the impact to the person you made the commitment to, and what did you learn from it?
Tell me about a time when your team's goals were out of alignment with another team you relied on in order to meet your goal.
How did you work with the other team? Were you able to achieve your goal?
Tell me about a time when you uncovered a significant problem in your team.
What was it and how did you communicate to management and stakeholders? What did you do to address the problem? How did you manage the impact of this problem for the rest of your team?
Describe a time when you improved morale and productivity on your team.
What were the underlying problems and their causes? How do you prevent them from negatively impacting the team in the future?
Tell me about a time when a team member was struggling to keep up and you stepped in to help out.
Why were they struggling? Why did you decide to step in and support? What did you do to help? How did it impact your work? What was the outcome? What did you learn?
Tell me about the hardest person you have had to work with.
Why was the person hard to work with? How did you handle the situation?
Tell me about a time when a team member was not performing well and impacted your work.
How did you handle the situation? Why were they not performing well? What was the outcome? What did you learn from that situation?
Category: Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
Tell me about a time you disagreed with your team but decided to go ahead with their proposal
Why did you disagree? What was the outcome?
When was the last time you were challenged in public, and how did you handle it?
What was the challenge? What was the outcome?
Describe a time when you disagreed with your manager
How did you raise the issue? How did your manager respond? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time you gave up on a short term benefit in favor of long term benefit
Why was that the right trade-off? How did you ensure that the team understood the trade-off?
Describe a situation where you held an unpopular contrarian position.
How did you communicate your viewpoint and handle potential pushback?
Tell me about a time when you disagreed with a final decision but still committed wholly to its execution.
How did you navigate this situation and ensure a successful outcome? Did you learn anything new that changed your mind about your initial position?
Describe a situation where you and a colleague had a constructive disagreement.
How did you express your concerns and work together to reach a resolution?
Category: Hire & Develop the Best
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people.
Tell me about a time when you helped one of your team members develop their career.
How did you help that team member? What was the result?
Tell me about a time when you invested in an employee's development.
What did you invest and why? What was the outcome? Can you share an example where investing in an employee's development didn't work out.
Give me an example of a time you provided feedback to develop the strength of someone on your team.
Were you able to positively impact their performance?
Tell me about a time when you provided coaching for a team member.
What started the coaching? What was the outcome?
Tell me about someone you hired that you thought complimented your skills.
How did you coach an individual in an area where you have a weakness?
Tell me about a time when you had a low performing individual on your team.
How did you deliver feedback? Did their performance improve?
Category: Insist on the Highest Standards
Leaders have relentlessly high standards — many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
Tell me about a time when you were unsatisfied with the status quo.
What did you do to change it? Were you successful?
Tell me about the most successful project you have shipped.
What made it successful? What did you do to make it successful?
How do you ensure standards are met when delivering projects?
Tell me about how you communicate those standards and make sure there is buy in for acheiving them.
Category: Invent & Simplify
Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited to 'not invented here'. As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.
Give me an example of a complex problem you solved with a simple solution.
What made the problem complex? How do you know your solution addressed the problem?
Describe the most innovative thing you have done and why you thought it was innovative.
What was the problem it was solving? What was innovative about it?
Tell me about a time when you were able to make something simpler for customers.
What drove you to implement this change? What was the impact?
Describe a time when you challenged your team to think innovatively.
What specifically did you do? How did your team respond?
Tell me about a time when you had a challenging problem or situation that the usual approach would not address.
How did you select an alternative approach? What alternative approaches did you consider? What was the end result? What was the impact?
Tell me about a novel idea you had or decision you made that had a big impact on your business.
What was novel about it?
Tell me about a time when you enabled your team to implement a significant change or improvement.
What problem are you trying to solve? How did you measure success? What was the end result?
Category: Learn and Be Curious
Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themsleves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.
Explain something interesting you have learned recently.
Why did you learn it? What is the most important detail about that topic?
Category: Ownership
Leaders are owners. They think long term and do not sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say 'that is not my job.'
Describe a situation where you took an action that was outside your immediate team's scope
What led you to take this action, and what was the result?
Tell me about a time when you established a vision for a team, project, or initiative when there was no existing vision.
How did you gain buy-in? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time you saw a bigger opportunity than what your manager saw.
How did you communicate your idea? Were there any trade-offs between pursuing what was originally requested versus the larger opportunity?
Tell me about a time you took ownership of a problem that was not the focus of your organization
Why did you step into that gap? Why was it important to you? What was the outcome?
Share an example of a time when you took on a responsibility that wasn't initially part of your job description
Why did you decide to step up, and how did it impact the company? How did you balance this new responsibility with your existing work?
Describe a time when you collaborated with another team to achieve a company-wide goal.
How did you ensure that both teams were working together effectively? How did you ensure alignment between your team's goals and the other team's goals?
Category: Think Big
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
Describe a time you proposed a non-intuitive solution to a problem.
How did you identify that it required a different way of thinking?
Give a specific example where you drove adoption for your vision.
Specifically what did you do drive adoption? Explain how you knew it had been adopted by others.
Tell me about your most significant accomplishment.
Why was it significant? What did you do to make it happen?
Tell me about a time when you identified a major opportunity for growth that others overlooked.
How did you pursue it, and what was the result?
Describe a situation where you had to challenge conventional wisdom in order to achieve a significant goal.
What approach did you take and how did it lead to success?
Share an example of when you had to pivot from an initial idea or plan to a bolder, more ambitious one.
How did you drive the change, and what was the impact on the organization?
Tell me about a time when you took a calculated risk to implement a groundbreaking strategy.
What was the situation, and how did your decision impact the organization?
Describe an instance when you rallied your team around a bold, long-term vision.
How did you communicate and maintain enthusiasm for the vision, and what was the outcome?
Share an example of when you successfully turned a major challenge into an opportunity for growth or improvement.
What was the challenge, and how did your approach lead to positive results?