Interview Question Creation
Creating Situational Interview Questions for Leadership Roles
This prompt helps HR teams design situational interview questions to evaluate a candidate’s leadership skills. It focuses on assessing decision-making, conflict resolution, team motivation, and strategic thinking in real-world scenarios.
Responsible:
HR/Recruiting
Accountable, Informed or Consulted:
HR, Leadership
THE PREP
Creating effective prompts involves tailoring them with detailed, relevant information and uploading documents that provide the best context. Prompts act as a framework to guide the response, but specificity and customization ensure the most accurate and helpful results. Use these prep tips to get the most out of this prompt:
Collaborate with current leaders to identify common challenges and priorities for the role.
Review company values and leadership expectations to align interview questions.
Prepare evaluation criteria for assessing responses based on situational effectiveness.
THE PROMPT
Help create a set of situational interview questions to evaluate a candidate’s leadership skills for the position of [specific leadership role, e.g., Director of Engineering] at [specific software startup]. Focus on:
Decision-Making Scenarios: Recommending questions, such as, ‘Describe a situation where you had to make a critical decision under tight deadlines. What steps did you take, and what was the outcome?’
Conflict Resolution: Suggesting scenarios, like, ‘Imagine a conflict arises between two high-performing team members. How would you mediate the situation while maintaining productivity and morale?’
Team Motivation: Including challenges to assess influence, such as, ‘Share an example of when you motivated a team during a period of low morale. What actions did you take, and what results did you achieve?’
Strategic Thinking: Proposing forward-thinking scenarios, like, ‘If tasked with launching a new product in a competitive market, how would you develop and communicate the strategy to your team?’
Handling Failures: Including resilience-based queries, such as, ‘Describe a time when your team faced a significant setback. How did you handle it, and what changes did you implement to prevent future issues?’
Provide a detailed set of situational interview questions that assess the candidate’s ability to lead effectively, make strategic decisions, and resolve challenges. If additional details about the team or organizational goals are needed, ask clarifying questions to refine the questions.
Bonus Add-On Prompts
Propose strategies for tailoring leadership situational questions to specific team dynamics or challenges.
Suggest methods for incorporating company values into leadership-focused situational questions.
Highlight techniques for assessing emotional intelligence and adaptability in leadership scenarios.
Use AI responsibly by verifying its outputs, as it may occasionally generate inaccurate or incomplete information. Treat AI as a tool to support your decision-making, ensuring human oversight and professional judgment for critical or sensitive use cases.
SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE
Focus on situational questions for specific leadership areas, like crisis management or innovation.
Include tips for exploring a candidate’s approach to building and scaling high-performing teams.
Propose ways to tailor questions for early-stage startup environments versus mature organizations.
Highlight tools like structured scorecards for evaluating leadership competencies.
Add suggestions for incorporating follow-up questions to dig deeper into situational responses.
WHEN TO USE
When hiring for leadership roles requiring strong decision-making and team-building skills.
To assess alignment with company values and strategic goals.
During panel interviews to explore leadership scenarios collaboratively.
WHEN NOT TO USE
For roles with limited leadership or team management responsibilities.
If organizational challenges and leadership expectations are undefined.