10 Must-Ask Interview Questions for Leadership Roles
Interviewing for leadership positions requires more than just a conversation. Candidates often show their best selves in the interview room—but that doesn’t always reflect how they’ll lead under pressure. And when hiring the wrong leader can cost up to 150% of their salary, it’s critical to ask the right leadership interview questions to uncover true capabilities.
Use this list to go beyond surface-level answers and find leaders who can actually lead.
10 Questions to Ask During an Interview: Leadership Edition
It’s important to give a candidate enough room in the interview to show you how they communicate and react to questions. An interview should be long enough to really dig into the way they lead: You’re the miner that needs to be constantly mining their responses for leadership potential and what they’re telling you… without actually telling you. Use these questions as a jumping-off point for more meaningful interview conversations, rather than a rapid-fire lightning round of queries.
Tell me about a time when you disagreed with a client/team member/leadership. What did you do?
Here, you’re looking for how a candidate responds to disagreements and their emotional intelligence in working with others.
When have you seen a potentially negative situation as an opportunity?
As a leader, a candidate should be able to talk about times when they made a hard decision or situation into something that benefited their team or the organization as a whole. Ask how they situation made them feel and if their solution is still being used.
Have you ever failed to meet client expectations? What did you do about it?
Candidates love to talk about their leadership successes, but asking about some of their failures can give you better insight into their resiliency and flexibility on the job.
How do you usually react at crunch time? Walk me through
your process.
See how a candidate would potentially work under pressure and their personal process for rising to a challenge.
What was your relationship with your previous boss like? What made you feel that way?
Most candidates have been cautioned to never say anything negative about their previous employer, but I don’t mind it if the conversation is productive. If, for instance, they had a boss who was disorganized and it caused the potential hire anxiety, what did they do about it? Was it simply a complaint or an opportunity for a solution?
How would you handle a situation where a team member was underperforming/coworkers aren’t getting along/you’ve received difficult feedback?
Start using some familiar scenarios from your own organization. Maybe you know what answer you’d like to hear based on past experience, but be careful to not lead the candidate to the answer you want.
What’s your availability? How do you handle disruptions throughout the day?
This is an especially crucial question for remote workplaces. While you can’t really ask personal questions about an individual’s family, you can make it clear when you expect them to be available and they may volunteer information about their household by explaining their office setup or how they expect to communicate with your team.
What would you do if you felt like you were right about something and a client/team member didn’t share that view?
Does the candidate have a growth mindset? Are they willing to listen and communicate with others effectively? This question can help you cut through some of those canned answers to cause a little anxiety and receive radically honest answers.
Can you give a few examples of positive moments from the last time you led a team? Can you think of a few negative issues?
Get real-life examples from past experiences to see how a candidate deals with both positive outcomes and potentially negative issues. Their emotional intelligence should shine when they’re describing person-to-person interactions.
Do you have any questions for me?
Obviously, this is a chance for the candidate to get to know more about you and your organization, but it’s also a valuable learning tool. If, for example, all of their questions have to do with compensation and time off after you’ve had such an in-depth interview, you can assume that’s what’s most important to them. Their questions can also indicate whether they’d be a good fit for your organization from a cultural standpoint: Are they asking about how team members work together or the way you approach conflict? It’s a green flag.
The Definitive Guide to Interviewing for Leadership Positions
Download the complete guide to interviewing for leadership positions, including bonus questions to ask for the interview process.
Conclusion
The hiring process is already high stakes; hiring for a leadership position only cranks up just how critical interviewing is when recruiting. You don’t want to waste anyone’s time and you certainly don’t want to hire based on one shiny, professional interaction. The interview process should be one tool in your hiring arsenal to help you assess and pinpoint a leadership candidate that would make your organization better than before.
