Top 7 Team Leader Interview Questions & Answers

Leaders are a crucial part of an organisation. They enable teams to achieve their goals by providing clear direction and assistance. They demonstrate strong leadership, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.
Hence, in a team leader’s interview, you will be asked about team management, common business challenges, essential skills a leader must have, and other such questions.
This article will enlist top team leader interview questions and how to answer them.

7 Team Leader Interview Questions and How to Answer Them

How does your team describe you?

Interviewers frequently ask this open-ended question to understand your relationship with your team members, your willingness to take feedback from your team, and identify if you are a fit for their organisation.

So, it is important to prepare for this question. Here are some tips on how to answer this question:

• Make a list of your strongest qualities
• Refer to past reviews and references to understand how others describe you
• Talk to your co-workers to understand their perception of you
• Rehearse some probable answers

2. How do you resolve a conflict in your team?

With this question, the interviewers want to understand your strategy or approach to resolving conflicts, which showcases your leadership quality.
Therefore, provide a detailed answer with relevant real-life examples.
You can use the STAR interview method (situation, task, action, and result) to answer this question.

Here are some tips on how to answer this question:

• Show the interviewer that you can stay calm during a conflict. Try to make them understand that you are empathetic about other people’s perspectives
• Make the hiring manager understand that you don’t take things personally or get too emotional during a conflict. You are a logical thinker and can solve a stressful situation tactfully
• Show the hiring manager that you can keep the company’s best interest in mind

3.How would you motivate your team?

An interviewer might ask this question to determine the effectiveness of your management style and its compatibility with their (interviewer) company’s objective.
When interviewers ask this question, try to share real-life instances of how you motivated your team members, colleagues, or friends to achieve their goals. You can also take inspiration from the sample answer mentioned below.

Here’s a sample answer to this interview question:

I have mostly stuck to the ‘employee of the month’ motivational technique to encourage my team members. It rewards the team member with the highest productivity or efficiency. This has helped me motivate my employees to provide high-quality work consistently. 

4. Tell us about a leadership challenge you encountered and how you overcame that

Interviewers ask this question to test your problem-solving, communication, and critical-thinking skills. This can be tricky to answer, but it allows you to demonstrate your leadership capabilities. Therefore, when interviewers ask this question, you can follow the below-mentioned steps to frame an answer to increase your chance of getting the job.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to answering this question:

Step 1: Recall a leadership challenge that was significant and successful

Step 2: Explain in detail how you tackled the situation to the interviewer

Step 3: Focus on the outcome and your learnings from that

5. What is the most difficult decision you made as a leader?

Typically, interviewers ask this question to understand your professional priorities and if your mindset matches the company’s ideologies. They also want insight into your problem-solving skills to understand of how you navigate a difficult situation.

Here are a few tips on how to answer this question:

• Choose a real-life example from your professional or personal life to highlight your problem-solving skills
• Brush up your storytelling skills and put them to use while answering this question. Create a compelling and engaging story around how you successfully overcame a difficult situation.
• Make your answer relatable and timely

Here’s how to answer this question:

My team members don’t take many leaves. So, once, I had the opportunity to give my team a holiday for a weekend. It was hard to make that decision because we worked on a tight deadline. However, if I had skipped making that decision, my team members would have been overworked, stressed, and demotivated. Meanwhile, giving leave helped in increasing productivity and the quality of work.

6. How do you communicate with your team?

There are a variety of questions that an interviewer can ask related to teamwork and practical communication skills. For instance, the interviewer can ask you, “How have you tackled a communication challenge in your team?” or “Describe how you communicate during team meetings.”

All of these questions help interviewers determine your communication skills. So, when interviewers these questions, they are trying to understand how you are with your team. They are finding answers to questions like:

• Are you an active listener?
• Are you open to criticism?
• Are you a team player?
• Are you a people person?

How to answer this question?

You can use the STAR interview method to create a compelling story from your previous organisation. An instance where you excellently used your interpersonal skills to handle a communication challenge.

Here’s an example:

I have an open communication policy with team members. This means that I will always be available for a quick chat. I will provide my team members with my professional phone number and email, which they can use to reach out to me personally.

7. What skills do you think every team leader must have?

A good leader has communication, problem-solving, reliability, and relationship-building skills. Interviewers ask this question to find out answers:

• How will you improve your job performance?
• What areas need improvement?
• Are you willing to upskill?
• What are your weaknesses?

Here’s an example of how you can write an answer:

As a leader, I will emphasise honing my communication and leadership skills through online sources like industry experts or on-job training programmes that will help me become a great leader. Additionally, I will closely assess my team members and see if they need to update their skills or learn new skills, techniques, or knowledge about their workplace or job responsibility.

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