leader ship

ZULHALMI BIN WAKILIN BB211104457

LEADER
SHIP

1


HOW TO ANSWER “WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR LEADERSHIP
EXPERIENCES?”

There are a couple guidelines to keep in mind. You want to

pick leadership examples that follow these 3 guidelines:

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 leadership experience in other customer service

roles, you should absolutely share that! That’s much more relevant than


leadership on a sports team, in school, etc.

So always go with what’s most relevant first!



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 leadership experiences, pick things that are recent
whenever you have a choice



And finally, choose an example that’s impressive overall
Along with thinking about which of your experiences are most relevant and

recent, you need to think about how impressive 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 you’re interviewing for a 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, and try to share examples that are most challenging

and have a “wow” factor.

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Best Interview Answers for “What Are Some of Your
Leadership Experiences?”

So to give the best answer possible, you want to
combine the three points above, and then be
specific. If you have previous 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 did you lead, and who 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 choose as a leader, and why?
And finally, conclude your leadership experiences

by talking about the RESULT. That’s most
important. How did things turn out? And what did

you learn from it? How did you use this
experience to improve and how will you use this

knowledge to perform well in this job you’re
interviewing for!

3

It’s Okay if You Don’t Have ‘Perfect’ Leadership
Examples…

Maybe you just graduated from school, or you’re applying
for your first job. You might not have work-related
leadership 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 thing an
employer wants in the interview, so you just need to prepare
the best you can and give the best example you can when

responding to the question.
And if the STAR method isn’t working (I’ve seen people
struggle to use it if your example of leadership experience is
from 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 and develop
as a leader? Always show what you learned at the end!
That’s one of the keys to answering this type of interview

question.
If you don’t have any formal leadership experience (like
managing a team at work, or managing client projects), here
are 9 examples of leadership experience to help you get

ideas…

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10 Leadership Experience Examples

1. Leading a project or task in school
This can be any level of school. Choose whatever you completed
most recently. If you’re a college graduate, pick a project from the

last one or two years of college.
If you just graduated high school, choose something from your

senior year. 
Taking a lead role in a school project is a great example of leadership
experience. If you delegated tasks, chose the overall strategy for the

project, or anything like that, that’s leadership!
Organizing a team presentation can also be considered leadership.

2. Organizing a study group
Maybe you didn’t lead projects in school, but you organized a study

group after class. That’s still a great example of leadership and
taking initiative.

Any example of you taking initiative and doing something that
wasn’t required, but helped you succeed, is a good leadership

example. 
3. Spotting a problem at work and finding a solution
Maybe you spotted a potential problem in your most recent job and
brought it to your boss’ attention, or better yet – fixed it yourself.

This is a great leadership example.
Any time you go above and beyond what your basic job requires and
solve a problem or take the lead on something without being asked

is great leadership. 
4. Sports leadership experience
If you’ve played a lead role on any sports teams, this can certainly be
used as a leadership example in job interviews. 
So think back to your past, and whether you led any sports teams. 
5. Volunteer/non-profit leadership
If you’ve volunteered at a local foundation or non-profit and took a
leadership role – even in one task or for one day – you can mention
this as leadership experience. 
Some of the best leadership experience examples can be for one
single day or one single moment; it doesn’t need to be something

you did for years.

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6. Training/mentoring newer team members
You don’t need to have a Manager or Supervisor job title to play a lead role
in a past job. If you were ever asked to help get a new team member up to

speed, train them on the basics, or watch over them on their first few
weeks, that’s a great example of leadership experience.

This shows your past boss trusted you and knew they could rely on you.
That’s one of the key things you want to try to do when sharing past

leadership experiences – pick something that shows other people thought
you were someone they could trust and rely on.

In an interview, this will help convince the interviewer that they can also
rely on you! That’ll help you get hired.
7. Managing clients/projects

Maybe you’ve never had people reporting directly to you, but you’ve
managed projects or managed client accounts for your last company. 
You can certainly mention that as one of your leadership examples in the

interview. 
8. Direct reports
If you’ve ever had direct reports, this is the most powerful example you can
give. If you hired people, did annual reviews, and had them reporting to you
on a regular basis, this shows your employer trusted you at a very high

level.
While most people aren’t going to be able to give this as an example, if you

can, you should!
9. Leading a meeting or committee
This can be at school, at an after-school organization, any type of volunteer

organization, a job, a club, etc.
If you led a meeting or committee for even a short time period or one-time
event, that’s still great leadership experience to put on a resume and then

talk about in interviews if asked. 
For example, if you were part of a club that needed to host an event, and
they put you in charge of the committee responsible for finding a venue and
calling different event halls to ask if they’re available – that’s something

you led. 
10. Passion projects
Even if you took the lead on a project that wasn’t work-related and wasn’t
for a non-profit, you can still share it as a leadership example. 
Maybe you got three friends together to build an electric go-cart. This still
shows the ability to manage and organize a highly-technical, time-
consuming project. That’s a valuable trait for many jobs!
So don’t be shy about sharing examples of leadership experience even if you
weren’t paid for it, weren’t officially a “manager”, and weren’t doing it for
an official organization or employer!

THANK
YOU