Exploring Leadership Interviews

For the past year I have been reaching out to individuals in technology leadership positions. For someone like myself to get a leadership position. I need to interview individuals that have a role which I might inspire to have one day.

Interview 1

For a  Technology Leader’s what challenges do you see in the work environment?

  • Change Management
  • Alignment projects
  • Specialization of matrix
    • QA
    • Solution reliability
    • Data integrations
  • Forming, storming, performing, norming
  • Change out of control. Change we can control. Time to do things in particular way.
  • Bring alignment to answer questions
  • Timing.

Evolution of change and new roles.

  • New working agreements
  • Bring clarity to teammates
  • Allocation and establishment.

What does success look like for the roles of Software Leader?

  • Working through challenges
  • Bring along teammates
  • Create the culture we want in solution delivery
    • Give people a pathway and lead them that way.
  • Eliminate Silos because of specialization
    • Always be a project that needs other resources.
    • Customer, team mates or solution need.

How is this different from previous role?

  • Approach project with multiple projects.
  • Diverse projects.
    • Ask on project management
  • Technical leadership role
    • Make a technical call when needed.
    • Know business value of the team.
    • Understanding all the technical capabilities.
    • Know standards

What does alignment look like with Solution Enablement and Solutions Reliability & Quality.

  • Mixed bag
  • Technology consistent approach of projects.
    • How can we get things done for all
    • Trust to work in a project
  • Guidance
  • Consistent
  • Measure reliability
  • Create framework and alignment.

What challenges or opportunities do you see with alignment with Architecture and Solution roles.  

  • Challenges of consistent
  • sustainability across of solutions
  • responsibilities of these roles
  • day of in a life
  • more focus on direction of reliability
  • direction of solution
    • what does someone need to solve for?
  • Project alignments with teams.
  • Collocated with a team.

Interview 2

What do you value in leadership?

  • Authentication
  • Leads by example
  • Leads by how I feel
  • Call it what is but have optimistic feeling.
  • People First
  • Adaptability
  • Relationship Building
  • Calculated risks
  • Following rules vs intent of rules

What qualities do you look for in alignment with other leaders?

  • Align to
  • Who are you open too
  • Getting things done
  • Great good of getting something done
  • Agreeing what is most important.
  • Transparent and open about a reason. The ask.

Based on leadership roles you have had, say 30 days to a year later, what would you have changed in terms of expectation vs reality?

  • People on own island
  • Create opportunity
  • Schedule ideas to connect
  • Lonely spot until other peers.

What is Solution Reliability?

  • Monitoring challenges
  • Strong focus for reliability
  • Go out of our way
  • Who do I talk to, who owns this

 Interview 3

What do you value in leadership?

  • Values (honesty & integrity)
  • Judgment
    • Trust their judgment when you are no there
  • Watch people to coach teammates
  • Strong culture in team
    • Diversity
  • I don’t want coaching to be dramatic
    • Realtime feedback
    • Watch intently
    • Conversations are effective
    • Seeing and doing something

For Technology Leader’s what challenges do you see in our new environment?

  • New job, leader, lead dev,
  • Most of everyone has new team
  • time
  • prioritized of enablement
  • ppm tool
  • work coming at all angles
  • work at organization
  • work with constituently.

What does success look like for the roles of Solutions Enablement and Solutions Reliability & Quality.

  • Learning
  • Create people, great project and great technical
    • Can a person hire
  • Business features
  • Education and advocacy

My follow-up to all these is what challenges or opportunities do you see with alignment with Architecture and Solution roles.  

  • Real clear what the role
  • Enablement alignment

Misc

Hunger to learn, gain experience relationships, pulled into facilitation, cross function team relationship, taking off job interview, never know, deeply caring about people, thank,

Get a high from this, what makes you have it. Make people feel better and see potential.

Find joy

Interview 4

What do you value in leadership?

  • #1 trust & empathy
  • Create those synergy
  • Can you overachieve
  • Capability to connect
  • Understand
  • I should feel comfortable to ask him about work
  • Empathy: understand and work (emotional intelligence)
  • Create more leadership
  • Honesty and trusty
  • Connecting leadership
  • Having a conversation now to find a cadence?
  • Want to coach and mentor?
  • Transform things
    • Cadence

What qualities do you look for in alignment with other leaders?

  • Have to spend some time.
  • Tour of meeting people
  • My background, what I like to do,
  • Communication with purpose

Based on leadership roles you have had, say 30 days to a year later, what would you have changed in terms of expectation vs reality?

  • Look at Business at current state
  • Pain points
  • Realized risk is how things go through
  • People and culture
  • Change

Interview 5

Preparing for a interview

  • Biggest overall plan
  • Experience and Project Team
  • Plan written out
    • 30
    • 60
    • 90

What do you value in Leadership?

  • Let team make decisions
    • Opinion on how to get buy in
    • Trust people with skills
    • Command control of
      • Leader should not get in there way
      • Reason to get there
      • Check with this
  • let people, make a decision

Interview 6

What do you value in leadership?

  • Authentic
  • Servant Leadership
  • Healthy (productivity vs toxic)
  • Trust vs Performance
    • Loss when something is down
  • Craftsmanship
  • Good Cause
  • Safe at work
  • Let’s other shine

What do qualities do you look for in alignment with other leaders?

  • Treating others
  • Assume good intent
  • Give credit where credit is due.
  • Recognize the good
  • Servant
  • Seeking excellence
  • Building connections in how they working.

What are your challenges as a leader?

  •  Going first in a sign of leadership
    • Inhibits others
    • Speak loudest
  • Is how to differentiate between employees?
  • Competition
    • Can destroy

High performing teams

  • Your awards have to match your actions?
  • Does merit match award?
  • Wanting the same for each

How to Stay motivate

  • Does everyone have what they need
  • Celebrate
  • Selfless
  • Growing and engage
  • Doe the people you lead happy

Interview 7

What do you value in leadership?

  • Relationship and Trust
  • Amazing how talented people
  • Open honest
  • Learn from each other
  • Ability to be in more conversations
  • Working for more people
  • Find more opportunity
  • How can they
  • What do they want or open and transparent
  • Team Success and associations
  • What can help guide them too
  • Perception is important
  • Leadership to emulate
  • Authenticate
    • Perception
    • First to talk
    • Accountability is team in general

What qualities do you look for in alignment with other leaders?

  • Trust and honest
  • Open to disagreement and direction
  • Diversity in thought
  • Relationship to understand where someone
  • When someone doesn’t say anything and silently disagree
    • Looking for body language
    • Personalize to someone

What are your challenges as a leader?

  • Alignment
    • Brand new to season leader
    • Education
    • Strategic aspect
    • Position ourself to future
    • Everything is a guess
  • Evolvement
  • Does a person have to prove themselves?
  • Everyone has own scale of how agile and predict how a person can adapt to it.
  • Custom solution to out of the box
  • Virtually seeing people

Interview 8

What do you value in leadership?

  • Leader is another role and responsibility.
  • Humility
  • Courage
  • Collaboration
  • People are being taken care of opportunities  pursue people to inspire professional

What qualities do you look for in alignment with other leaders?

  • Prefer work with people when you manage.
  • Limits a person possibility
  • What can Ilearn
  • Diverse skill sets
  • Take initiative
  • Integrity
  • Work hard and get things done
  • Afraid to try 

Based on how you started at FCSAmerica, say 30 days, what would you have changed?

  • Support to figure out App Dev
  • Schedules meetings networking/relationships
  • Need to find way

A follow up to the question about What are your challenges as a leader in our new environment?

  • Challenges what to stop to keep priorities of organization
  • Not burning teammates
  • Culture hit on what
  • Business owner manage expectations
  • Stay innovated