Leadership attributes and leadership questions for interview

The particular leadership attributes that you are looking for are likely to vary depending on the kind of business you run. However, these characteristics are valuable to all businesses, regardless of your company’s own leadership ethos. This article will take you through seven key leadership attributes that you should take stock of during the recruitment process, which you can consider alongside sample interview questions paired with each one. Find out if your candidate has the essential skills they need to be an effective leader by tailoring these questions to suit your interviews for management or team leader roles.

Flexible

A flexible management candidate will have a broad skill set and will be able to respond to different kinds of challenges. These could involve team building , technical troubleshooting or leading a successful campaign. They will be excited about responding to novel problems when they arise, and will be quick yet thorough in providing solutions.

Questions you might want to ask your candidate to find out whether they are a flexible leader include:

• Q1: You and your team are facing a new logistical or technical issue. What steps would you take to solve it?
• Q2: The new application that your team has installed to streamline your workflow is not working properly. How would you handle this setback?
• Q3: Imagine that a couple of key members of staff are unexpectedly off sick this week. How would you ensure the smooth running of the office throughout the week?

Experienced management candidates will be able to look at these examples and adapt strategies that they have used before to handle similar situations. Candidates who are particularly flexible will be able to think up novel solutions based on their skill set for new issues. However, less flexible candidates will not be interested in taking on additional or especially challenging responsibilities.

Driven

You will be able to tell if a candidate is enthusiastic through your overall conversation with them, but sometimes it takes additional questions to find out how driven they are to succeed. You will probably want a manager with staying power – someone who can lead a team through difficult projects and even difficult conversations.

Ask these questions to find out whether they have what it takes:

• Q1: What do you enjoy most about being a team leader?
• Q2: How do you steer your team through difficult decisions?
• Q3: How has your previous experience as a manager enabled you to overcome new challenges?

A candidate with a strong leadership mindset will have clear examples of where they have been driven during previous projects. They may have a portfolio that they bring to the interview to demonstrate this. Less promising candidates will avoid taking on too much work, and will not be as enthusiastic about novel challenges.

Adept at conflict resolution

A strong leader will be authoritative and guide their team through many difficult challenges. Sometimes, though, the challenges will come from within the team itself. In this situation, leaders have to adapt their management style to the situation; they may need to adopt a more democratic approach to keep the whole team happy. That said, there will be times when a more authoritative approach is necessary in order to deal with disagreeable team members. A strong candidate will have a good idea of what to do in each given situation.

Questions to ask in order to find out more about your candidate’s conflict resolution approach include:

• Q1: Imagine you’re leading a campaign strategy meeting and your team cannot decide on whether to implement an idea. How would you handle this so that everyone is satisfied?
• Q2: How do you act when a team member challenges your authority on a decision?
• Q3: How do you handle a difficult team member?

Leaders who fall back on a more passive approach to conflict resolution are just as problematic as those who are too aggressive when resolving issues within their team. A candidate who shows a balanced and considered approach to conflict resolution is one to strongly consider.

Critical thinker

A strong manager will have excellent critical thinking skills. With their mind fixed firmly on future goals, they will be able to plan and streamline workflows for the whole team efficiently. They will be constantly finding new ways to get the job done more efficiently, and at lower costs. A rational manager will also be able to effectively gauge when it is appropriate to take risks, looking at the data and any feedback available before doing so.

Assess whether your candidate is a rational leader through these questions:

• Q1: How would you structure a management plan for your team?
• Q2: When do you believe it is the right time to take a risk?
• Q3: Have you experienced any challenges while building a workflow?

With candidates who do not use their critical thinking skills, their team’s workflow will be disorganised and there is a chance that campaigns or projects will not run on time. When a candidate loves to plan but knows when to take risks as well, you can trust them to lead a team effectively.

Creative

The ideal candidate will bring a lot of new ideas for your business into the interview room. They might not have all the solutions to your company’s big dilemmas straight away, but it is a great sign if they take the initiative on problem-solving from day one. A creative leader – as opposed to simply a creative candidate – will be able to provide rational justification for their ideas and will be able to explain clearly to their team how to implement those ideas.

Test your candidate’s creative mind with these questions:

• Q1: How would you promote our product to a new audience?
• Q2: How do you work new ideas into your strategies?
• Q3: What was your biggest eureka moment in your previous job?

A creative candidate will have a range of great anecdotes about their past ingenuity. Not only that, but they will have great suggestions for improving your business strategies as well. Uncreative candidates with no new ideas can cause a business to stagnate, but also bear in mind that some creative candidates will rush into ideas without consulting the rest of the team first.

Diplomatic

Whether it is in their dealings with clients, customers or their team, all leaders must be strong diplomats. Being diplomatic falls under a leadership style, and a manager may need to take a diplomatic stance while dealing with conflict resolution. This is a peace-making approach that incorporates a little persuasion on the part of your leader; after all, you are looking for a candidate who will be able to sell clients your ideas, rather than the other way round. You will be able to tell if a candidate is diplomatic by whether they are a good listener during the interview.

These questions will help you to decide whether they have this crucial soft skill:

• Q1: How do you negotiate with clients?
• Q2: Have you ever persuaded a sceptical customer or client?
• Q3: How do you approach constructive feedback about an employee ’s work?

A strong candidate will not use aggression to handle sensitive situations with clients or employees. They will know when to take charge on a matter but also how to use tact, and how to get people to come around to their way of looking at things in a pleasant and positive way.

Inspirational people manager

A good leader will have excellent people management abilities and will inspire others to achieve great things both on an individual level and for your business. Their communication style is clear and fluent, assigning clear roles to each team member so that they know how to contribute to the overall success of the team effectively. Not only is such a candidate great at getting people to see the project at hand from their perspective, but they will also be able to pull the whole team together through difficult stages of a project, distributing the workload fairly and strategically.

Consider asking your candidate these questions to find out if they are an inspiration to their team:

• Q1: How have you helped employees to develop their skill set, such as through training courses?
• Q2: Your team does a great job on a project. How would you incentivise your team so that they do a great job on the next one?
• Q3: One of your employees is to be fired. How would you handle this conversation with the employee and the rest of your team?

Watch out for candidates who have no previous history of training staff or do not know how to handle sacking or disciplining an employee in a suitable manner. Although some situations call for a softer approach, a good leader will know how to incentivise employees but also how to be firm with them when necessary.

Additional points to consider

Interview questions about leadership are a great way to find out more about a candidate’s personality as well as their background. With these team leader interview questions, you can find out whether your candidate has the skills necessary to take on a management or project leadership role in your business. These may be tough leadership questions to ask an interview candidate, but they will give you a head start on what to expect from them if you choose to recruit them. What is more, they are just a few of the leadership qualities that you should be looking for in a candidate. A good leader will also have some of the following attributes as well:

• goal-setting and planning
• communication skills
• delegation
• dependability
• integrity

During an interview, you will be able to pick up on your candidate’s spoken communication skills, as well as whether they listen to you well. This is not only a crucial skill for leaders in your business, but everyone who works with you in your team. Similarly, different situations at work call for different leadership styles. You can use the above questions to find out your candidate’s preferred leadership styles, which will give a good indication of how they will handle conflicts in the workplace . Ideally, you will be looking for a candidate who is firm but diplomatic in their dealings with employees. With pre-existing employees who show strong leadership qualities, help them to develop this further by letting them shadow you on a job or mentoring them. When you give employees the chance to learn from your lead, they will in turn become better at working individually and as part of the wider team.

Related article: 7 Effective Skills to Help You Become a Better Leader