Leadership

If you’re pursuing a Sr. PM and higher role (Product Lead, Director, Head / VP) you will be tested for your leadership skills typically by behavioral-style interviews. This can be the most difficult stage, as a leader has an impact on their team, company processes, products and will be working with other leaders across the company.

Leaders guide people, deliver successful projects and partner with fellow leaders. In your interviews think about how you can tell your leadership story in three ways:

• How you manage people
• How you execute on your deliverables
• How you work with fellow execs including CEO

The list of skills a leader must have are expansive but according to Glassdoor these are the most common leadership skills assessed in interviews:

• Leadership style — your leadership style and leadership style you prefer
• Influencing other leaders
• Impacting your employees
• Conflict Management
• Setting goals
• Execution
• Innovation
• Failure

Here are some questions that you might face:

• Tell me about a time you had a major disagreement with your manager/employee and how you overcame it.
• How do you set and meet goals?
• What is your leadership style?
• What leadership style do you prefer in your leader?
• What skills were missing in your team that you helped develop?
• What leadership skills did you develop in the past year?
• Tell me about a time when you had to persuade other leaders towards a goal/project.
• How do you handle underperforming employees?
• What was a difficult decision you had to make as a leader, and how did you arrive at that decision?
• Tell me about your most complex project and how you managed to deliver it on time and budget.
• What’s more important, consensus or doing things your style?
• How do you stay informed of all your products and customers?