Leadership Behavioural
Interview Questions

Following on from our executive interview guide, we will now discuss behavioural questions. What are they and why are they necessary during leadership interviews?

There are various recruitment methods which will help you find the right candidate. Interviews are an integral part of recruitment, but asking the right questions in an interview is essential. An interview will help you get to know the candidate. An outstanding competency-based interview enables you to understand how they will perform in their new role.

What Are Behavioural Interview Questions?

Behavioural interview questions are designed to help you understand a candidate’s behaviour. For leadership interviews, the aim is to establish how they might handle situations in the workplace.

Behavioural questions commonly start with “Tell me about a time…” or “Describe a time when you…” These questions are good for understanding how a candidate may react and behave in the job role.

Not all questions should immediately ask for success stories. Try and phrase the question to see if they turn it into a success story, or if they talk about a lesson they learnt because it wasn’t successful. Honesty can be a powerful tool in an interview.

Answers to behavioural questions often take the form of a STAR:

• Situation
• Task
• Approach/Action
• Result/Resolution

If a candidate follows this structure, it usually demonstrates that they’ve thought about their answers beforehand.

The Best Leadership Behavioural Questions

There are hundreds of questions you could ask a potential candidate, but bombarding them with questions is not fun for the candidate or beneficial for yourself. You must pick the questions that are the most relevant to the position you are recruiting for.

Here are some of the best leadership behavioural interview questions across a range of competencies. They can be adapted for each role, but you can begin to see what important information can be gauged from these types of questions. Make sure to ask follow-up questions to probe for additional information.

• Tell me about a situation where you were working on a project that involved cross-functional collaboration. What was your role? What did you do to ensure the team worked well together? What was the outcome?
• What steps have you taken to garner support for your organisation’s mission and values? What have you done to embed it in the culture?
• How do you go about setting goals and objectives for the long-term success of your company?
• Tell me about a time when you challenged others to take a calculated risk or make a decision without all the information they would have liked?
• What is the most significant conflict that has occurred between members of your team? What did you do?
• Tell me about a time when you took a creative approach to solving a business issue.  What was the outcome?
• Describe a particularly stressful situation you’ve faced at work. How did you deal with it?
• Tell me about a time when you had to adapt your own style to work effectively with others in a team. How did you approach this? What was the outcome? What did you do to build team spirit?
• Tell me about a key performance initiative you brought into a business. How did you evaluate its success?
• Give me an example of a time when you challenged the status-quo.  Why was there a need for change?  What problems did you encounter?
• Give me an example of when you generated energy and enthusiasm amongst others in your team. How did you motivate others to achieve high standards of performance? What were you trying to achieve? What have you learnt about motivating others?
• Describe a particularly stretching target that you’ve worked towards. How was the target set? How did you go about tackling the target? How successful were you in reaching the goal?

Davis Associates is a team of HR consultancy experts in the field of assessment for selection. With over 35 years of experience, we are here to help you throughout the recruitment process.