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“Describe Your Leadership Experiences”
Example Interview Answers
Interview Questions and Answers / By Biron Clark / 4 COMMENTS

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You could hear this question in any interview… whether it’s an entry-level position or a Director job: “W
leadership experiences?”

I’m going to give you some quick and easy guidelines to make sure you give a GREAT answer that stand
think “yes, this is the person we should hire!”

Here’s how…

How to Answer “What Are Some of Your Le

Experiences?”
There are a couple guidelines to keep in mind. You want to pick examples of leadership that follow the
 Choose an example that’s as relevant as possible
What does this mean? If you’re applying for a Customer Service Supervisor job, and you’ve had some le
other customer service roles, you should absolutely share that! That’s much more relevant than leade
in school, etc.

So always go with what’s most relevant rst!

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Pick something that’s somewhat recent if you can

Recent experience beats older experience, if everything else is equal. So when you share some of your
experiences, pick things that are recent whenever you have a choice.

And nally, choose an example that’s impressive overall

Along with thinking about which of your experiences are most relevant and recent, you need to think a
something is overall.

Leading a large number of people is impressive.

Managing people directly is more impressive than just leading people on a quick project (especially if y
job where you’ll be managing more people directly – this goes back to what’s relevant!)

Leading a complex project is impressive.

Handling multiple projects is impressive.

You get the point. So also think about the scale of your past leadership, and the challenges involved, an
that are most challenging and have a “wow” factor.

Best Answers for “What Are Some of Your

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Leadership Experiences?”
So to give the best answer possible, you want to combine the three points above, and then be speci c.
work experience, use the STAR method- “situation, task, action, result”.

What was the situation you were in? Was it school, a recent job, or something else? How many people
were they?

Next, what was the task? What did you need to accomplish or what problem did you face?

After that, talk about the action you took and how you led. What were your options, which did you cho
why?
 And nally, conclude your leadership experiences by talking about the RESULT. That’s most important
out? And what did you learn from it? How did you use this experience to improve and how will you use
perform well in this job you’re interviewing for!

It’s Okay if You Don’t Have ‘Perfect’ Examp

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Leadership Experience…
Maybe you just graduated school, or you’re applying for your rst job. You might not have work-relate
experience. That’s okay.

Just pick the most relevant leadership experiences that you can think of.

Do the best you can with the example you prepare. Nobody’s perfect, and nobody has every single thin
the interview, so you just need to prepare the best you can and give the best example you can when re
question.

And if the STAR method isn’t working (I’ve seen people struggle to use it if your example of leadership
sports, etc.), make it simpler and just focus on the situation, and what you learned from it.

What was the goal, and how did you help accomplish it through leadership? And how did you improve a
leader? Always show what you learned at the end!

That’s one of the keys to answering this type of interview question.

Full Example Answers for “What Are Your

Leadership Experiences?”
Now that you =
know what to
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your answer,
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few examples.

I’ll give an example for a recent graduate without work experience, and then for somebody who has wo

Example answer if you have no work experience:

“ I just nished my degree in Finance, and most of my classes during my nal year involved teamwork. I
leader whenever possible, because it allows me to develop skills in communication, delegation, and m
tasks and deadlines. In a senior-level Accounting class, we were broken off into teams of four and had
project throughout the entire semester. My team ended up getting the highest grade in the class beca
early in the project and delegated tasks to people based on their strengths. I enjoy leading and delega
continue leading in my professional career now.

Example answer if you do *not* have work experience:

 “ In my previous job I was responsible for supervising a team of ve, including managing their schedule
mentoring them. I enjoy leadership and am proud to say that two of these ve people were promoted
them. In my job before that, I supervised a team of three Designers on certain projects. I wasn’t their d
they reported to me for the projects I led. So I have a mix of project management experience from tha
management experience from my most recent job. I enjoy both.

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What To Do Next:
Now you need to come up with your own examples of leadership experience to share in the interview.

Think about where you’ve led, what you’ve learned, and which story will be most relevant to the emplo

Remember the rst thing we discussed: Your example of leadership experience should be as relevant a
recent, and impressive overall.

If that doesn’t sound familiar, go back to the rst half of the article where this is mentioned.

And whatever example of past leadership experience you choose to share, be ready to get speci c and
What was the outcome and what did you learn?

Any time an interviewer is asking this, there’s a good chance they want to hire a strong leader.

So you need to sound like you enjoy leading and are comfortable doing more in the future!

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 4 comments

Moses says
106 January 3, 2018
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Thank you for this article

2 Reply

RAM KUMAR TIWARI says

May 31, 2018

This article is really helpful to those who are preparing for the interview.

2 Reply

Tonga Joel says

June 13, 2019

This article is so good.Thanks for the innovation.

2 Reply
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Aspel says
June 21, 2019

You just save my life.

Thank you

2 Reply

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