What are successful ways to answer management style interview questions?

Whether you’re applying to a management position at a new company or being asked interview questions for a promotion at your current company, always be prepared to talk about your leadership skills and personal experience as a manager. 

Whenever possible, try to anticipate the questions hiring managers will ask and prepare answers in advance that touch on the following topics:

• Preferred leadership styles

• Important management skills

• Past management/leadership experiences

• Interacting with/motivating team members

Answering a management style interview question about leadership preferences

Often, hiring managers at an interview for a management position will start by asking questions like this: “Can you tell me about your preferred leadership style?”

In this context, leadership style refers to the general template for how you direct employees to complete tasks and fulfill certain roles in a project. To make a good impression at the start of the interview, you can cite one of these potential leadership styles:

• Democratic leadership - The manager delegates responsibilities and solicits input from their staff  before making a final decision.

• Autocratic leadership - A manager makes decisions on their own and expects their employees to promptly follow their instructions.

• Laissez-faire leadership - The manager gives employees objectives and resources, then leaves them to complete their tasks with little to no supervision.

• Bureaucratic leadership - Managers establish and strictly enforce rules on what their employees should do and how they should do it.

• Transformational leadership - Managers take a direct hand in their employees’  education and personal growth.

• Transactional leadership - Managers incentivize their employees to excel through bonuses and rewards for completing goals and exceeding expectations.

Most businesses aren’t interested in hiring managers with self-described autocratic or laissez-faire styles of leadership, while businesses that pride themselves on innovation may look kindly on job-seekers with a democratic or transformational approach to management. 

Always be honest when answering questions about the leadership styles employed in previous management positions. At the same, you should always research the company you’re applying to in order to identify the leadership style their current management teams prefer. 

Even if this management style is different from your own, you can mention it when answering interview questions about being a leader or follower.

Answering questions about management skills you value

During a job interview for a management position, your interviewers may also challenge you with a question along these lines:

“In your opinion, what are the most important skills a manager should have?”

When answering manager candidate interview questions about your behavior, think back to the first management career you ever worked in. 

Recall moments where you struggled or felt out of your depth, then identify the specific skill or method you discovered that made everything easier. If appropriate, talk about this specific management skill during the interview, using the narrative behind it to grab the interest of HR staff.

Answering management style interview questions about accomplishments and setbacks in past leadership roles

During interviews for managerial positions, interviewers may wind up asking questions or making requests along these lines:

“What was one of your biggest accomplishments as a manager?”

“What was one of your biggest setbacks as a manager?”

These sorts of interview questions about management style can be very tricky to answer (much like the similarly infamous question “Can you describe your greatest weakness?”). To answer these questions earnestly and impress your interviewers, keep the following two principles in mind.

1. Be honest. Bring up real-life moments from your past careers where you took on leadership responsibilities and made choices that greatly benefited the company, using specific data whenever possible. 

If asked to describe a setback, don’t try to cite a past “management setback” that isn’t a setback at all, i.e., I did such a good job as a manager that my colleagues got jealous.

2. Connect your past accomplishments/setbacks to the job you’re applying for. When interviewers ask about your past successes and failures in management, they’re trying to figure out whether your background makes you a good fit for their job opening.  

To this end, talk about how your past triumphs as a manager taught you valuable lessons that you can apply to your new job’s responsibilities. By the same token, talk about the lessons you learned from your (honest) past mistakes and how they influenced the goals you’re looking to achieve in your next role.

Answering questions about recruiting, motivating, and coordinating teams

Interviewers for manager positions will ask questions like these when they want to learn more about how you treat the people you lead: “What qualities do you look for in the employees you hire or manage?” “How do you encourage your employees and motivate them to excel?” “How do you make sure your employees complete their project tasks on time?”

To answer the first question, list the following:

• Personal qualities that pleased your supervisors in past careers

• Personal qualities that you’ve seen in co-workers who did very well for themselves

• Qualities listed in entry-level job openings for the company you’re currently applying to

If the company in question does very technical work, mention qualities such as “attention to detail” or “analytical abilities.” 

To answer the second of these management style interview questions, cite signature leadership methods from your preferred leadership style. 

If you like to use transactional leadership, talk about the ways you reward employees who do their tasks well and on time. If you’re also a fan of democratic leadership, talk about the approaches you take to get input from your employees and make them feel like a valuable part of the team. To answer the final question listed above, cite employee-coordinating methods like these:

Key takeaways

1. During job interviews for management positions, bring up preferred leadership styles of yours that you know your prospective employers will like.

2. Talk about management skills you value AND skills your prospective company mentions on their job pages.

3. Be honest about your past triumphs and failures as a leader. For successes describe specific positive outcomes; for failures put emphasis on how you learned valuable lessons and improved as a manager.

4. Talk about your current standards for how you treat your employees, cultivate their potential, and keep them focused.