# Leadership Foundation Question

1 Are Right A Lot Tell me about a decision for which data and analysis weren't sufficient to
provide the right course and you had to rely on judgements and instincts? Have
two examples ready

2 Are Right A Lot Tell me about a time you made a difficult decision and how you knew it was the
right solution (probe on how they evaluated the options, if they received input,
what data they reviewed)

3 Are Right A Lot Give me an example of when you had to make an import decision in the
absence of good data because there was not any.

4 Are Right A Lot Tell me about a time when you made a decision an dhte learning from the
experience enabled you to make a good decision later. What di you learn that
was applicable

5 Are Right A Lot Tell me about a time when you have been faced with a challenge
where the best way forward or strategy to adopt was not "clear cut" (i.e. there
were a number of possible solutions). How did you decide the best way forward

6 Are Right A Lot Tell me about an error in judgment you made in the last year or two, what was
it and what was the impact.

Are Right A Lot- Tell me about a business model decision or key technology decision or other
Manager important strategic decision you had to make for which there was not enough
7 data or benchmarks. In the absence of all the data, what guided your hcoice and
how did you make the call?

Are Right A Lot- What are the top strategic issues you've had to face in your current role? What
8 Manager decisions did you end up making?

9 Bias for Action Give me an example of a calculated risk that you have taken where speed was
critical. What was the situation and how did you handle it? What steps di you
take to mitigate the risk?

10 Bias for Action Describe a situation where you made an important business
decision without consulting your maanger. What was the situation and how did
it turn out?
Tell me about a time when you had to analyze facts quickl,y define key issues,
11 Bias for Action and respond immediately to a situation. What was the outcome

12 Bias for Action Tell me about a time when you have worked against tight deadliens and didn’t
have the time to consider all options before making a decision. How much time
did you have? What apporach did you take
13 Bias for Action Give an example of when you had to make an important decision and had to
decide between moving forward or gaterhing more information. What did you
do. Hwat information is necessary for you to have before acting?

Bias for Action- Tell me about where you felt your team was not moving to action quickly
14 Manager enough. What did you do?

15 Bias for Action- Tell me about a time when you were able to remove a serious roadblock/barrier
Manager preventing your team from making progress? How were you able to remove the
barrier? What was the outcome?

16 Customer Obsession Give me an example of a time you used customer feedback to rive
improvement or innovation. What was the sitatuino and what action did you
take?
17 Customer Obsession Give me an example of your most difficult customer interaction and how you
worked through it. What was the outcome?

18 Customer Tell me about a time a customer wanted one thing, but you felt they
Obsession need something else
19 Customer Obsession Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty for a
customer

20 Customer Obsession Most of us at one timr oe another feel frustrated or impatient when dealing
with customes. Can you tell about a time you felt this way and how you dealt
with it? When is it appropriate to push back

21 Customer Obsession Can you give me an example of when you've been able to see around the
corner to meet a customer need or delight a customer with solution

22 Customer Obsession Tell me about a time when you overcommited yourself or your company

23 Customer Obsession Tell me about a time when you had to balance the needs of the customer vs. the
needs of the business?

24 Customer Obsession- In your opinion what is the most effective way to evaluate the
Manager quality of ypur product or service to your internal/external customer? Give an
example of a time when you used these
measures to make a decision
Customer Obsession- What cahnges hav eyou implemented in your current department to meet the
25 Manager needs of your customers? What has been the result?
26 Deliver Results Tell me about a time you were driving toward a goal and were more than half
way to the objective when you realized it may not be best or right goal or may
have uninteded consequence what did you do(testing for right result vs. blanket
driving forward)

Tell me about a goal that you set that took a long time to achieve or that you
are still working towards. How do you keep focused on the goal given other
27 Deliver Results
priorities

28 Deliver Results Tell me about a time where you not only met a goal but considerably exceed
expectations. How were you able to di it? What challenges did you have to
overcome?

29 Deliver Results Give me an example of a time when you were able to deliver an important
project under a tight deadline. What sacrifices did you have to make ot meet
the deadline?

30 Deliver Results Tell me about a time you had signficant, unanticipated obstacles to overcome in
achieving a key goal. Were you eventually successful?

31 Deliver Results Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty in
accomplishing an important goal.

Tell me about a time when you had to accomplish an important goal without
32 Deliver Results much direction or input from your boss.

33 Deliver Results- How do you ensure you are focusing on the righ tdeliverables when you have
Manager several competing priorities? Tell me about a time when you did not effectively
manage your projects and something fell through the cracks

34 Deliver Results- Wwhats your secret to success in setting stretch goals for your team that are
Manager cahllenging, yet achievable? Tell me about a tme you didn’t hit the right
balance? How did you adjust?

35 Deliver Results- Give an example of a mission or goal you didn’t think was achievalbe. What was
Manager it and how did you help your team try to achieve it. Were you successful in the
end?

36 Dive Deep Tell me about a time you were trying to understand a problem on your team
and you had to go down several layers to figure it out. Who did you and what
information proved msot valuable? How did u use to info to solve problem?

37 Dive Deep Tell me aobut a problem you had to solve that required in-depth thought and
analysis? How did you know you were focusing on the right things?

38 Dive Deep Tell me aobut a time when you linked two or more problems
together and identified an underlying issue? Were you able to find a
solution?
 Walk me through a big problem or issue in your organization that you helped to
solve. How did you become aware of it? What wa smissing and how did you fill
39 Dive Deep
the gap?

40 Dive Deep Can you tell me about a specific metric you have used to identify a
need for a change in your department? Did you create the metric or
was it already available? How did this and other information
ifnluence change?
41 Dive Deep Give me a sitaution in which it took you asking why five times to get to a root
cause?

42 Dive Deep- Manager As a manger, how do you stay connected to the details while focusing on the
strategic, bigger picture issues? Tell me about a time when you were too far
removed from a project one of your employees was working on and you ended
up missing a goal.

43 Dive Deep- Manager When your direct reports are presenting a plan or issue to you, how do you
know if the underlying assumptions are the corect ones?
What actions do you take to validate assumptions or data?

Earn Trust of Others Describe a time when you significanlty contributed to improving morale and
44 productivitiy on your team

Earn Trust of Others Give an example of a time where you were not able to meet a commitment to a
45 team member

Earn Trust of Others Tell me about how you have effectiviely built trusting working relationships with
46 others

47 Earn Trust of Others Describe a time when you need the cooperation of a peer or peers who were
resistant to what oyu were trying to do

Earn Trust of Others Tell me about a piece of direct feedback you recently gave a colleague. How did
48 they respond?

Earn Trust of Others Tell me about a time you had to communicate a big change in direction for
49 which you acnticpate people woul dhave a lto fo cocncern

Earn Trust of Others Telle me about atime your teams goals were out of alignment with another
50 team on which you relied to attain a key resource

Earn Trust of Others Tell me about a time when it was necessary for you to take a calculated risk.
51

52 Earn Trust of Others- Tell me about a tim eyour team's goals were out of alignment with
Manager another team on which you relied to attain a key resource. How did you work
with the other team? Were you able to achieve your
goals?
53 Frugality Give me an example of how you have helped save costs or eliminate waste
within your operation

Tell me about a time when you had to make tradeoffs between quality and cost.
54 Frugality How did you weight the options?

Tell me about a time you had to get soemthing done with half or twi thrids of
55 Frugality the resources you thought you need

56 Frugality Tell me about a time you when you generated a creative solution ot a problem
withour requireing additional resources

Tell me about a time you didn’t have enough resources to do something

58 Frugality- Manager Give an example of a time when you challenged your team to come
up with more efficient solution or process. What drove the request?
How did you help?

How do you determine when to award or ask for additional resources? What
59 Frugality- Manager criteria do you use for making the call?

Tell me how you have created organization (or customer) value through either
60 Frugality- Manager increased revenue stream or lowering the cost structure.

Disagree and Commit Tell me about a time that you strongly disagreed with your manager on
61 something you deemed to be very important

Disagree and Commit Give me an example of when you took an unpopular stance in a meetingor wre
an outlier
62

63 Disagree and Commit When do you give in to group even if you disagree?

64 Disagree and Commit Describe a time wher you felt really strongly about something but ultimately
lsot the argument

65 Disagree and Commit Give an example when you submitted a good idea to your amanger and he/she
did not take action
66 Disagree and Commit Tell me about a time the business gained something because you persisted for a
length of time

Disagree and Commit Provide an example of a time whne have had to make a difficult deciison under
67 pressure and then justify it

68 Disagree and Commit What is your signature accomplishment or key achievement?

69 Disagree and Commit- Give an example of when you had had to support a business initiative with
Manager which you didn’t necessarily agree. How did you handle it?

Disagree and Commit- Tell me about a time whe nyou pushed back against a decision that negatively
Manager impacted your team. What was the issue and how did it turn out?
70

71 Hire and Develop The Tell me how you help your team members develop their careers.
Best Can you give me two to three examples of specific people in whom you invested
and how you helped them develop their careers including oen who wasn’t being
successful but you saw potentil and
chose to invest?
72 Hire and Develop The Give me one example of a time when you provided feedback to develop and
Best leverage the strengths of someone on your team. Were you able to postiively
impact that person's perfromance?

73 Insist on Highest
Standards

Insist on Highest Give me an example of a goal you’ve had wher eyou wish you had done better.
Standards What was the goal and how could you have improved on it?
74

75 Invent and Simplify Tell me about the most innovative thing you've done and why you
thought it was innovative (they may probe that it was
"evolutionary" vs. "revolutionary")
76 Invent and Simplify People often say the simplest solution is the best. Tell em about a particular
complext problem solved with a simple solution

Invent and Simplify Tell me about a time you were able to make something significantly simpler for
customers. What drove you to implement this change?
77

78 Invent and Simplify Desscribe a challenging problem or situation in which the usual appraoch was
not going to work. Why were you unable to take the usual appraoch? What
alternative approach did u take
79 Invent and Simplify Give an example of a creative idea you had that proved really difficult to
implement. What was the idea dn what made it difficult to implement?

Invent and Simplify Tell me about an out of the box idea you had or decision you made that had a
80 big impact

Invent and Simplify- Give me an example of how you have changed the direction or view of a specific
Manager function/deparment and helped them embrae the new way of thinking? Why
81
was a change needed?

Invent and Simplify- How do you draw new thinking and innovation out of your team? Give an
Manager example of how your approach led to specific innovation.
82

Invent and Simplify- Tell me about a time when you have enbaled your team/ a team member to
83 Manager implement a significant change or improvement

Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area
84 Ownership of responsibility. Why was it important?

85 Ownership Give me an example of a time when you didn’t think you were going
to meet the comitments you promised. How did you identify the
risk and communicate? What was outcome?

86 Ownership Tell me about a tiem you made a hard decision to sacrifice short term gain for a
longer term goal.

Give an example of when you saw a peer strugglign and decided to step in and
87 Ownership help. What was SBO?

88 Ownership What steps do you take to ensure projects you complete get
transitioned effecitvely to new owners? Give an example of project
you chose to re-enagage after delegating. Why did you do it?

89 Ownership- Manager How do you ensure your team stays connected to the company
vision and bigger picture? Give an example of when you felt a team or individual
goal was in conflict with the company visiion. What did
you do?
90 Ownership- Manager Tell me about an initiative you undertook because you saw that it
could benefit the whole company or your customers, but wasn’t within any
groups individual responsibility so nothing was being
done.
91 Think Big Give me an example of a radical approach to a problem you proposed. What
was the problem and why did you feel it required a completely different way of
thinking about it?

92 Think Big How do you drive adoption for your vision/ideas? How do you know
how well your idea or vision has been adopted by other teams or
parterns?
93 Think Big Tell me about a time you were working on a initiative or goal and
93 Think Big
saw an opportunity to do something much bigger than the initial
focu

94 Think Big Tell me about a time you looked at a key process that was working
well and questioned whehter it was still the right one? What
assumpions were you questioning and why? Did you change the
process?
Tell me about a time you took a big risk- what was the risk, how did you decide
95 Think Big to do it and what was the outcome?

96 Think Big Now tell me about a time you took a big risk and it failed. What did you learn?

97 Think Big-Manager Tell em about a time you came up with the vision for a team when
there wasn’t a guiding vision. What was it? How did you gain buy-in
and drive execution?
98 Think Big-Manager Tell me about encouraging or enabling a member of your team to take big risk.
How did you balance the risk ot the business with possible positive outcome for
the organization and opportunity for learning for your direct report?

99 Think Big-Manager Tell me about a time you had to develop a product/business model from scratch
or when you dramatically changed one in a turnaround situation.

10 Vocally Self Critical Give me an example of an idea you had that was strongly opposed? Why
resistance? How did you handle feedback?

Give me an example of a significant professional failure. What did you learn

Tell me about a time where someone has openly challenged you. How did you
10 Vocally Self Critical handle this feedback?

Tell me about a time you made a significant mistake. What led to you making
the wrong decision? What would you have don edifferently in retrospect?
10 Vocally Self Critical
 Give an exmaple of a tough or critical piece of feedback you received. What wa
it and what did you do about it?
10 Vocally Self Critical

10 Vocally Self Critical Tell em about a time you received feedback with which you didn’t agree. How
did you react?

10 Vocally Self Critical Tell me about a tiem you had to learn something outside of your comfort zone
in order to drive results for your org or adapt to change in market

10 Vocally Self Critical Tell me about a time you uncovered a significant problem in your team.

Vocally Self Critical- Tell me about a time you uncovered a significant problem in your team. What
Manager was it and how did you communicate it to your manager and to your peers or
10 other stakeholders?

10 Vocally Self Critical- What feedback mechanisms have you created in your organization
Manager to know if your team has been successful? Give me a specific example of where
you realized your team had not been as effective as it could have.

11 Vocally Self What three things are you working on to improve your overall
Critical-Manager effectiveness as a manager?