Testing Leadership Skills in Interview: Red Flags, Questions!

I was once tasked with recruiting five new team leaders for our company; I thought this would be a walk in the park since I knew what made a good leader. I was quickly humbled when I realized there’s a difference between knowing what a good leader and what signs to look for during an interview is. Recruiters need to be able to accurately test leadership skills in an interview by asking the right questions and watching out for any potential red flags. So what’s the best way to gauge whether the candidate is suitable for the job?

To test leadership skills in an interview, you should ask several behavioral and situational questions about practical scenarios. The right candidate should show selflessness, an open mind, and an ability to accept criticism. Red flags include stubbornness, arrogance, and poor communication.

The right candidate should show selflessness, an open mind, and an ability to accept criticism.

There are many requirements that a good leader or manager should meet, which is why every organization should conduct thorough interviews that reveal as much of one’s personality traits and knowledge as possible. Read on below as I explore the best way to test leadership skills in an interview, including the best questions to ask and some signs indicating a good or an unfit leader.

How To Test Leadership Skills in an Interview

A good leader should possess a broad and complex range of qualities, so testing for leadership skills in a short interview is a challenging feat. However, if you manage to use your time right, you can differentiate between candidates with at least some managerial potential and those without.

Since leaders are expected to operate in a business world under constant change, they must be knowledgeable and adaptable.

However, how can you test someone’s adaptability with such a broad range of responsibilities? The best way to achieve that is to ask the right situational and behavioral questions. But an excellent way to assess someone’s managerial skills is to present different work-related scenarios and evaluate their reaction to them and their problem-solving skills.

While technical knowledge is still an essential part of a leader’s arsenal, you’ll mostly want to test a person’s soft skills during an interview. These include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Their ability to communicate ideas clearly
• Delegate responsibilities
• Keep calm during difficult situations
• Put themselves in someone else’s shoes

That’s because it’s easier for candidates to lie about their soft skills, given that these are impossible to be backed up by a license or degree. 

So, while you can get a reasonably accurate idea of one’s technical knowledge by reviewing their diploma, the process is more challenging when assessing communication skills, creativity, or charisma, which are essential leadership skills.

A great way to judge whether or not a candidate possesses these qualities is to ask them how they’ve solved previous work-related issues or invent a potential scenario and ask for their input within a limited time frame.

The second approach can also help you more realistically determine how well the candidate performs under pressure.

Ask Behavioral Questions

Starting the interview with a few behavioral questions is an excellent way to determine their leadership skills. 

For example, you can ask them to give you an example of when they’ve led a group of colleagues toward success in a work project. You can also ask them to describe specific scenarios where they’ve shown *insert leadership skill here* in the workplace.

Though these questions seem superficial at first, they can give you a lot of insight into the candidate’s leadership skills and character.

For example, if you get a quick, generic answer, you’ll know it was probably rehearsed. 

Moreover, based on how the situation is re-told, you can assess several qualities other than those shown in the story. How a person recounts a story can give insight into their charisma, humility, and communication skills.

For me, it is crucial that I get the sense the candidate has reflected on the question previously or that they tell me, “I never thought about it before,” but they find that interesting.

I care less about the specific answer than I do about them showing the ability to reflect and think about leadership.

Ask Situational Questions

Then, you can follow up with some situational questions, asking the candidate to solve a hypothetical issue you present to them. Their problem-solving skills should become apparent once these questions are posed, and some candidates might even show impressive creativity in their responses.

However, try to focus on potential issues that might arise along the way and steer away from “gotcha” type questions designed to have the candidate fail.

Though all leaders should have excellent attention to detail, their primary responsibility is to see the bigger picture and lead their subordinates through real-life issues, and that’s what you want to test during the interview.

A great situational question that can help you assess the candidate’s managerial, organizational, problem-solving, decision-making, and collaboration skills is: 

What would you do if you faced X problem while on duty?

Though there won’t be a single right or wrong answer to the question you pose, the very nature of what the candidate says can give you a lot of insight into how prominent their leadership skills are.

This is also an excellent opportunity for them to show their communication skills. Can they clearly present their idea and angle of attack, or are they hard to understand?

For example, when they answer, they must first show that they can adequately communicate and delegate responsibilities. 

They also need to convince you that their problem-solving skills follow a growth mindset, meaning they need to be more process-oriented than goal-oriented.

If a candidate is too fixated on the end goal and doesn’t see what’s important along the way, that’s a red flag.

You’ll want to look for candidates that give unique, creative questions. This will be easy to follow, though, as most interviewers are impressed by candidates who give out-of-the-box answers either way.

However, I’m reminding you that if you have a “right” answer outlined on your interview sheet, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be open to new potential solutions.

Another factor to remember is that while most leaders share some of the same qualities, they don’t follow the same path to success. This shows different leadership styles, and you must determine which one you’re looking for before interviewing candidates.

Depending on which source you rely on, you’ll find four to eight different leadership styles, each best suited to a specific situation. So, before crafting the interview, think about what your organization needs. 

Do you want a leader with a more direct management style or one that acts more as a coach? 

The former stays more confined to their duties, delegates their subordinates’ needs, and always operates around company-related goals. The latter, on the other name, true to their description, acts as a mentor to their subordinates, working along with them and helping them grow professionally.

These are just two leadership styles you’ll have to consider, so it’s best to outline the type of skills you want the candidates to possess immediately.

One company’s great manager might be another company’s downfall, so tread carefully when deciding what leadership style would work best with the dynamics that are already created in the workplace.

Ensure you recruit someone with a leadership style that adds value to your business instead of making the widespread mistake of recruiting someone whose leadership style is similar to yours! We like people who are similar to ourselves, but they may need to be a better fit in the big picture.

Ensure you recruit someone with a leadership style that adds value to your business instead of making the widespread mistake of recruiting someone whose leadership style is similar to yours!

Now that you know more about the importance of asking behavioral and situational questions in testing someone’s leadership skills, it’s time to get down to the details and see which are some of the best quotations to ask during an interview that can help you determine whether someone is manager material.

Questions To Ask During an Interview

Here’s what you can ask a candidate during an interview for a managerial position:

• How can you motivate your team? This question can give you much insight into one’s managerial style without you having to ask directly. How creative and open-minded are they? Do they know how to influence their subordinates’ morale? Do they have the ability to inspire? These are all answers that you’ll get by asking this question.
•  How would you delegate task X? The purpose of this question is straightforward, and it can determine whether the person you’re interviewing is able to handle the more practical side of their position.
• How do you measure your performance? The answer will let you know how the candidate defines success, their ability to be objective, and how well-equipped they are to see their shortcomings.

Other questions you can ask include:

• Describe the best boss you ever had.
• How would you solve a conflict between subordinates?
• What’s your process when coming up with a new idea?

There’s a meme on social media today that demonstrates the difference between a leader and a boss. All the employees pull a heavy wagon in one frame, with the boss sitting on top with a whip.

But in the second frame, the leader is down with the employees, pulling the wagon. The lesson here is that a leader is there to help and motivate the team rather than tell everyone what to do without being willing to do it themselves.

Signs of an Unfit Leader, Red Flags

During the interview, there are several red flags you should pay close attention to. While some of these might not affect the performance of the average employee, when it comes to leaders and managers, they can be disastrous for the whole company.

With that said, here are some tell-tale signs of an unfit leader:

• Selfishness: Contrary to popular belief, a leader needs to be the most altruistic person in a room, always thinking about the greater good rather than their own agenda. They also need to be humble to win the dedication and respect of their employees.
• Excessive pride: A leader needs to accept that they can make mistakes just as much as anyone else and, therefore, must be open to constructive criticism. If a manager cannot see their faults, they’ll quickly lose not only the respect of their subordinates but also their control over the situation they’re dealing with.
• Closed-mindedness: The main purpose of a leader is to see new growth potential and to help the company move forward, none of which can be achieved if the person in charge is closed-minded.
• Absence of charisma: For a leader to be able to inspire, they need to be well-liked and respected, and someone who doesn’t make an impact on a personal level on the people they come in contact with simply isn’t fit to be a leader.
• Inability to take suggestions: As mentioned, humility is one of the most essential characteristics of a leader. They need to be able to take advice and, when necessary, even accept that someone else’s solution to the problem might be better. They also need to be able to cut their losses when required and go in a new direction.
• Tendency to micromanage: Though the job of a leader is to guide and help employees with their day-to-day responsibilities, a good leader should know when to give subordinates the independence they need to thrive.

Signs Of a Good Leader

So, now that you know some of the qualities you’ll want to avoid in a potential leader, what characteristics actually show someone’s potential to lead with success?

• Ability to inspire: A good leader should inspire and give courage to their employees; otherwise, their role only holds a little weight.
• Ability to help employees improve their weaknesses without them knowing: A good leader acts like a coach, as they help you improve without having you feel bad about your shortcomings. Instead, they use positive reinforcement by focusing on your strengths as an employee.
• Openness to change: A leader shouldn’t fear challenging the status quo. They should be the first to show an open mind and lead the company through positive change.
• Good communication skills: A good leader should know how to communicate their needs and ideas properly. For subordinates to do a good job, they must know exactly what’s expected. No matter how brilliant a person is, their brilliance goes to waste if they can’t express themselves efficiently.

The Secret Sauce of an Effective Recruitment Interview

There is one secret to recruiting the right leader, and it goes against what I used to think. The biggest mistake I see small businesses make when recruiting is believing they can ask the right questions without understanding the candidate’s personality.

Interviewing someone who needs to understand their personality within the Big five is like asking a vegan what meat they recommend; the response you will get is more or less useful.

Chances are you will miss asking questions regarding the candidate’s actual disadvantages; it is also much more likely they can steer the interview in a direction that is in their favor, upping their strengths and downplaying their weaknesses.

A much better way is to have the candidate undergo a personality test so that they and you become aware of their behaviors. This will allow you to predict their conduct in particular situations reasonably accurately.

For example, if your candidate scored high on agreeable, ask questions to determine their suitability in a situation relevant to your business and if that’s a trait you want on your team.

You might also find indicators of narcissism, and from there, you can ask follow-up questions to determine its potential impact on your business.

There are a million different types of personality tests (for example, Myers-Brigg, which I have taken but don’t recommend).

The one I believe to be the most legit is understandmyself.com. It is created by Doctor Jordan B Petersen, author of “12 rules for life, an antidote to chaos” and a lifelong clinical psychologist.

Final Thoughts

Determining whether someone’s a good manager or leader from a single interview can be tricky, but the tips and approaches outlined throughout this article can help point in the right direction.

When interviewing someone for a leading position, it’s essential not only to ask the right questions but also to look for the right signs in their demeanor and how they carry themselves and communicate their ideas. A practical test can also help you get a better read on the candidate, though only experience can truly show one’s leadership skills.