
Ask HN: How do you determine leadership qualities in an interview? - PericlesTheo
Usually, in behavioural questions, a candidate is asked about a time that x happened and how they reacted in order, or when they led a project in order to quantify leadership qualities.<p>Unless the candidate is really unprepared, most people would have read about these sort of questions  and come up with some template answers. Now, it&#x27;s up to the interviewer to ask further questions to get a better understanding but I&#x27;m wondering if people approach this in a different way.<p>As a side note, leadership qualities in my mind have nothing to do with seniority.
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arjunvpaul
Work Rules by Lazlo Bock may give you some good insights. It references a
rigorous study by Frank Schmidt and John Hunter. The gist of it is that the 3
best indicators of on-the-job performance is a work sample test, general
cognitive ability tests and structured interviews.

If leadership quality is something you wanna test for, you just have to design
the questions in that manner - for example ask about how she handled
professional failure in the past, ask her to give you some tips to motivate
subordinates, to teach you something you dont know, even its a fun fact, like
turtles breath through their bottoms.

As for your concern that "most people would have read about these sort of
questions and come up with some template answers". You could flush their
prepared answers by asking the candidate to give you a 10 second summary of
their answer first, then ask them to give another example in a 10 second
summary. After they have exhausted their "template answers", ask them to take
their time to give you an example other than these 2. Give them ample time.
Don't bully them or put them under pressure, work with them to elicit another
example and dive deep in a collaborative manner. for example with "why did you
think at that time, this was the right approach", "I messed up recently by
doing xxx, how do you think I could have handled it better". (Don't do this
for all your Behavioral Questions. Pick the last question especially if the
candidate is performing well)

End of the day most interviews are a waste of time because 99.4 percent of the
time is spent trying to confirm whatever impression the interviewer formed in
the first ten seconds.
([https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313878823_The_impor...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313878823_The_importance_of_first_impressions_in_a_job_interview)).
I cant find the reference for my life, but I think it was Google (or Amazon)
that found out that given the same structured interview process, some people
were better than others in selecting great teammates that performed well on-
the-job. The key is to encourage these type of interviewers to do more
interviews.

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anotheryou
I think I do a good job, but coming up with a nice story is difficult.

Success stories are short: you intervened early, spoke to the parties
involved, made a plan everyone could agree on and moved on.

The interesting stories often only have OK-ish endings: You are facing extreme
issues that are not under your direct control and you somehow keep things
working (bad hires, dis-functioning external teams, legacy code falling apart
from all ends, bad higher management).

And than there are non-issues you tackled early enough. E.g.: Newly
established workflows and documentation between departments, getting you a
compliment once and there might be less conflicts and pressure now, but it's
hard to quantify.

Maybe good questions would be (answers I'd like to hear in brackets):

How and when do you...

\- criticize (reviewing work, in a constructive manner)

\- praise (frequent and honest praise, but no participation trophies)

\- get involved in a grudge between team members (pro-actively, in private)

\- escalate to higher ups (as a last resort and for serious violations)

\- talk to individuals about work related, but not directly task-related
things (one on ones, actively checking on those you don't communicate with
often)

\- encourage autonomy (take risks, keep pushing, give feedback)

\- Do you approach different people in different ways? If so, make 1-2
examples. (adjusted level of politeness and formality when communication with
other cultures (I'm German, we really have to change gears depending on who's
on the other line), adjust how much guidance is needed when giving tasks,
don't be racist/sexist/etc.)

\- And to include something less people focused: When and how do decide to get
a 2nd opinion? (acknowledge when you are out of your depth, do research, learn
and ask others)

~~~
leaky_valve
I think it's just absurd to believe you can get to know someone within 60 - 90
minutes. A good liar/imposter can fool people for years. That's why you always
ask for references and cross check stories.

~~~
anotheryou
On the other hand a bad gut feeling proves to be right often too. And I'm
relatively sure it's not just confirmation bias :)

~~~
remilouf
What we call gut feeling is often a subconscious interpretation of the
person’s body language, physical appearance and tone of voice. It’s always
good to try to explicit why you had that feeling before basing your decision
on it.

I often think that shy people are assholes at first. Now that I’m aware of
that I try to test the shyness hypothesis first when I have that feeling.

So exploit it, it’s something humans developed for good reasons. Just be aware
of the biais and use it as a good starting point for a behavioral interview.

~~~
anotheryou
I'm totally with you here. One should not try to get rid of these quick form
of prejudices, because they exist anyways and they might be useful.

To make them less "dangerous" it's good to be aware of them and stay doubtful
about them to give anyone a chance to proof you better.

Reminds me of how I handed my phone to a couple once and wasn't sure if they'd
scam me, but I willingly took the risk of loosing my phone to be able to help
people when they ask.

They where honestly quite sketchy... I still wonder if they maybe just
spontaneously decided not to scam me because they felt I was prepared for it.

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newen
Amazon literally lists out the leadership qualities they look for and asks
people to prepare for them. You prepare for them, tell the story, and they
don't bother with follow-up questions most of the time.

I find behavioral questions to be bs anyway, since how someone presents
themselves during an interview and their day to day behavior can be very
different. Atleast here, you do your preparation, spit out your story, and
you're done. Slightly less bs way to interview for personality qualities.

~~~
PericlesTheo
Interesting, are the leadership qualities list public to have a look?

~~~
anotheryou
I guess it's this one:
[https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles)

------
codingdave
I ask directly - I ask them what their leadership style is, how they handle
conflict, and how they build consensus in a team.

I find that anyone with leadership experience can readily talk about how they
approach such things. Anyone with skills, but lacking experience can at least
talk around the subjects, and give you some insights into where they are. And
people without skills or experience flounder completely.

------
JSeymourATL
The Leadership Sort Deck identifies 20 characteristics reflecting leadership
priorities for the job.

It's an invaluable tool to assess and interview candidates. Really helps cut
through the BS.

> [https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Architect-Sort-Cards-
> Lomba...](https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Architect-Sort-Cards-
> Lombardo/dp/B00P2HDOVS)

------
sethammons
I've never tried this, and it probably would not work. I don't think I'd even
attempt it. However! A trick to detect a lie or fabrication is to have someone
go through something in reverse chronological order. People usually have
trouble constructing a false narrative in reverse.

~~~
comprev
Common police tactic to test the authenticity of a witness/suspect's story.
Another tactic is to leave the topic for a while - go completely off course -
and then ask the candidate to write it down in front of them. The act of
writing, instead of speaking, adds to the difficulty if the story is false.

------
1ba9115454
Difficult. Probably I would fail your interview but on the job I've been told
I'm a natural leader.

I have a very deep understanding of my domain. Maybe that helps.

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brudgers
What are leadership qualities? Asking for a friend.

~~~
JSeymourATL
Think Organization Agility / Political Savvy / Motivating Others, etc...

The Gold Standard in identifying Leadership Characteristics >
[https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Architect-Sort-Cards-
Lomba...](https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Architect-Sort-Cards-
Lombardo/dp/B00P2HDOVS)

~~~
brudgers
How are leadership qualities measured?

~~~
JSeymourATL
Great question --

Every organization/industry follow key performance indicators. Relative to an
individuals leadership mandate, what actions did they take? What were the
outcomes/results?

To be fair, there's always an element of situational subjectivity. Ultimately,
you're looking for a leaders impact on the bottom-line.

