ARE RIGHT, A LOT

Definition and Indicators

Are Right, A Lot - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Tell me about a time when you didn't have enough data to make the right decision. What did you do? What path
did you take? Did the decision turn out to be the correct one?
2. Tell me about a strategic decision you had to make without clear data or benchmarks. How did you make your
final decision? What alternatives did you consider? What were the tradeoffs of each? How did you mitigate risk?
3. Tell me about a time when you made a difficult decision with input from many different sources (customers,
stakeholders, partner teams, etc.). What was the situation and how did you arrive at your decision? Did the
decision turn out to be the correct one? Why or why not?
4. We don't always make the right decision all the time. Tell me about a time when you made a bad decision. What
was the impact of that decision? What did you learn? How have you applied what you learned?
5. We don't always make the right judgment all the time. Tell me about a time when you made an error in judgment.
What was the impact? What did you learn? How have you applied what you learned?
6. Tell me about a time when you discovered that your idea was not the best course of action. What was your idea?
Why wasn't your idea the best course of action? How did you find out it was not the correct path? What was the
best course of action? Who provided it? What did you learn from the experience?
7. Describe a time when you brought different perspectives together to solve a problem. What types of different
perspectives were represented? How did you seek out different points of view? What was the outcome? Where
there any key learnings from this experience? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything
different?
 BIAS FOR ACTION

Definition and Indicators

Bias for Action - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Give me an example of a calculated risk that you have taken where speed was critical. What was the situation and
how did you handle it? What steps did you take to mitigate the risk? What was the outcome? Knowing what you
know now, would you have done anything differently?
2. Tell me about a time when you worked against tight deadlines and didn't have time to consider all options before
making a decision. How much time did you have? What approach did you take? What did you learn from the
situation?
3. Describe a situation where you made an important business decision without consulting your manager. What was
the situation and how did it turn out? Would you have done anything differently?
4. Tell me about a time when you had to gather information and respond immediately to a situation. What was the
outcome? Would you have done anything differently?
5. Give me an example of when you had to make an important decision and had to decide between moving forward
or gathering more information. What did you do? What was the outcome? What information is necessary for you to
have before acting?
6. Tell me about a time when you saw an issue that would impact your team and took a proactive approach to solve
it. What was the issue? What did you do and what was the outcome? What did you learn from this situation?
7. Tell me about a time when you felt your team was not moving to action quickly enough. What was the situation?
What did you do? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently? (Manager)
8. Tell me about a time when you were able to remove a serious roadblock/barrier preventing your team from making
progress. What was the barrier? How were you able to remove it? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know
now, would you have done anything differently? (Manager)
 CUSTOMER OBSESSION

Definition and Indicators

Customer Obsession - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Describe a difficult interaction you had with a customer. How did you deal with it? What was the outcome? How
would you handle it differently?
2. Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond for a customer. Why did you do it? How did the customer
respond? What was the outcome?
3. Give me an example of when you were able to anticipate a customer need with a solution/product they didn't
know they needed/wanted yet. How did you know they needed this? How did they respond?
4. Give me an example of a time when you asked for customer feedback. How did you use that feedback to drive
innovation or improvement? How did the customer respond?
5. Tell me about a time when you evaluated the customer experience of your product or service. What did you do?
What was the result?
6. Tell me about a time when a customer came to you for something that wouldn't actually address their need. How
did you approach the situation? What was the result?
7. Sometimes customers make unreasonable requests. Tell me about a time when you've had to push back or say no
to a customer request. What did you say or do in response to that request?
8. Tell me about a time when you had to balance the needs of the customer with the needs of the business. What
did you do? What was the result?
9. Give me an example of a change you implemented in your current team or organization to meet the needs of your
customers. What has been the result? (Manager)
 DELIVER RESULTS

Definition and Indicators

Deliver Results - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Give me an example of a time when you were able to deliver an important project under a tight deadline. What
sacrifices did you have to make to meet the deadline? How did they impact the final deliverable? What was the final
outcome?
2. Tell me about a time when you had significant, unanticipated obstacles to overcome in achieving a key goal. What
was the obstacle? Were you eventually successful? Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have
done differently?
3. Tell me about a time when you not only met a goal but considerably exceeded expectations. How were you able to
do it? What challenges did you have to overcome?
4. Tell me about a time when you or your team were more than half way to meeting a goal when you realized it may
not be the right goal or may have unintended consequences. What was the situation? What did you do? What was
the outcome? Looking back, would you have done anything differently?
5. Give me an example of a mission or goal you didn’t think was achievable. What was it and how did you help your
team try to achieve it? Were you successful in the end? Looking back, would you have done anything differently?
6. Tell me about a time when you did not effectively manage your projects and something did not get completed on
time. What was the impact? What approaches do you use to make sure you are focusing on the right deliverables
when you have several competing priorities?
7. It can be difficult to set goals for a team that are challenging, yet achievable. Tell me about a time when you hit the
right balance. How did you approach setting the goals? What was the outcome? (Manager)
 DIVE DEEP

Definition and Indicators

Dive Deep - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Tell me about a time when you were trying to understand a complex problem on your team and you had to dig
into the details to figure it out. Who did you talk with or where did you have to look to find the most valuable
information? How did you use that information to help solve the problem?
2. Tell me about a situation that required you to dig deep to get to the root cause. How did you know you were
focusing on the right things? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?
3. Tell me about a problem you had to solve that required in-depth thought and analysis. How did you know you were
focusing on the right things? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?
4. Walk me through a big problem or issue in your organization that you helped to solve. How did you become aware
of it? What information did you gather? What information was missing and how did you fill the gaps? Did you do a
reflection at the conclusion of the project? If so, what did you learn?
5. Tell me about a specific metric you have used to identify a need for a change in your department. Did you create
the metric or was it already available? How did this and other information influence the change? What was the
outcome of this change?
6. Have you ever created a metric that helped identify a need for a change in your department? What was the metric?
Why did you create it? How did this and other information influence change? What was the outcome of the change?
7. Tell me about a time when you had to validate the assumptions underlying a direct report's project. How did you
decide follow up was necessary? What steps, if any, did you take to validate the assumptions? What was the
result? (Manager)
 EARN TRUST

Definition and Indicators

Earn Trust - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Tell me about a time when you had to communicate a change in direction that you anticipated people would
have concerns with. What did you do to understand the concerns and mitigate them? Were there any changes
you made along the way after hearing these concerns? How did you handle questions and/or resistance? Were
you able to get people comfortable with the change?
2. Give me an example of a tough or critical piece of feedback you received. What was it and what did you do about
it?
3. Describe a time when you needed to influence a peer who had a differing opinion about a shared goal. What
did you do? What was the outcome?
4. Give me an example of a time when you were not able to meet a commitment. What was the commitment and
what were the obstacles that prevented success? What was the impact to your customers/peers and what did
you learn from it?
5. Tell me about a time when your team’s goals were out of alignment with another team you relied on in order
to meet your goal. How did you work with the other team? Were you able to achieve your goals?
6. Tell me about a time when you uncovered a significant problem in your team. What was it and how did you
communicate it to your manager and other stakeholders? What did you do to address the problem? How did you
manage the impact of this problem for the rest of your team?
7. Describe a time when you improved morale and productivity on your team. What were the underlying problems
and their causes? How did you prevent them from negatively impacting the team in the future?
8. Tell me about a time when a team member was struggling to keep up or fit in and you stepped in to help
out. Why did you think they were struggling or not fitting in? Why did you decide in step in and support? What
did you do to help out? How did it impact your work? What was the outcome? What did you learn from that
situation?
9. Tell me about a time when a team member was not performing well and impacted your work. How did you
handle that situation? Why were they not performing well? What was the outcome? What did you learn from that
situation?
 FRUGALITY

Definition and Indicators

Frugality - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Give me an example of how you have helped save costs or eliminate waste within your role or
organization. What was the situation? What was the impact?
2. Describe a time when you had to get a project or initiative completed with limited resources. How did you
approach the situation? What was the impact? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything
differently?
3. Tell me about a time when you didn’t have enough resources to do something you felt was important but found
a creative way to get it done anyway. What was the situation? What other options did you consider? How did
you decide on a path forward? What was the outcome?
4. Tell me about a time when you had to make tradeoffs between quality and cost. How did you weigh the
options? What was the result? Would you have done anything differently?
5. Tell me about a time when you generated a creative solution to a problem or project without requiring
additional resources. What was the problem? What was the solution and how did you come up with it? What
was the outcome?
6. Give an example of a time you requested additional funding/budget to complete a project. Why was it needed?
Did you try to figure out another approach? Did you get the additional resources? Why or why not?
7. Describe a time when you had to decide whether or not to award or ask for additional resources. What criteria
do you use for making the call? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done
anything differently? (Manager)
8. Give an example of a time when you challenged your team to come up with a more efficient solution or
process. What drove the request? How did you help? What were some of your biggest challenges? What were
the end results? (Manager)
 HAVE BACKBONE; DISAGREE AND COMMIT

Definition and Indicators

Have a Backbone; Disagree and Commit - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Tell me about a time when you strongly disagreed with your manager or peer on something you considered
very important to the business. What was it and how did you handle it? Knowing what you know now, would you
do anything differently?
2. Describe a time when you took an unpopular stance in a meeting with peers and your leader. What was it? Why
did you feel strongly about it? What did you do? What was the outcome?
3. Often, we must make decisions as a group. Give me an example of a time you committed to a group decision
even though you disagreed. What factors led you to commit to the decision? Would you make the same decision
now?
4. Describe a time when you felt really strongly about something on a project but the team decided to go in a
different direction. How hard did you press the issue? How did you approach that project afterward?
5. Tell me about a time when you pushed back against a decision that negatively impacted your team. What was
the issue? How did it turn out? Would you have done anything differently?
6. Give me an example of when you submitted a great idea to your manager and they did not support it. What
was the idea? How did you handle the lack of support?
7. Describe a time when you had to support a business initiative that you didn't agree with. How did you handle
it? How did you deliver the message to your team?
8. Tell me about a time when the business gained something because you persisted for a length of time. Why were
you so determined? How did it turn out?
 HIRE AND DEVELOP THE BEST
Definition and Indicators

Hire and Develop the Best - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Tell me about a time when you helped one of your team members develop their career. How did you help that team
member? What was the result?
2. Tell me about a time when you invested in an employee's development. What did you invest in and why? What was
the outcome? Can you share an example where investing in an employee's development didn't work out?
3. Give me an example of a time you provided feedback to develop the strengths of someone on your team. Were you
able to positively impact their performance?
4. Tell me about a time when you provided coaching for a team member. What started the coaching? What was the
outcome?
5. Tell me about someone you hired that you thought complemented your skills. How did you coach an individual in
areas where you have a weakness? (Manager)
6. Tell me about a time when you helped a remote team member develop their career. Can you give me an example
of a specific team member and how you helped them develop across the geographic distance? (Manager)
7. Describe a person who struggled to get promoted under your leadership and how you helped facilitate their success.
(Manager)
8. Tell me about your most challenging talent review and promotion process that you conducted for your team. What
made it challenging? What factors did you consider in your talent review? What factors did you consider in the
promotion process? Did you incorporate a tool to counter unconscious bias? If yes, how? How do you manage
perceptions of unfair treatment? What did you learn from this process? Knowing what you know now, would you have
done anything different? (Manager)
9. Describe a time when you constructed a team to accomplish a goal. What factors did you consider in constructing
the team? Did you factor diversity into your team construction? How did you balance work requirements, team skill
composition, and team stretch opportunities? What do you consider when you allocate work? How did you ensure
team members were able to work effectively together? Would you have done anything differently? (Manager)
10. Tell me about a time when you had a low performing individual on your team. How did you deliver feedback? Did
their performance improve? (Manager)
 INSIST ON THE HIGHEST STANDARDS

Definition and Indicators

Insist on the Highest Standards - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Describe a time when you refused to compromise your standards around quality/customer service, etc. Who
was your customer? What was the result?
2. Tell me about a time when you were unsatisfied with the status quo. What did you do to change it? What was
the impact? Would you do anything differently in the future?
3. Tell me about a time when you worked to improve the quality of a product / service / solution that was already
getting good customer feedback. Why did you think it needed improvement? How did customers react?
4. Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision between standards and delivery. What tradeoffs did you
have make? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?
5. Give me an example of a goal you’ve had where you wish you had done better. What was the goal? How could
you have improved on it?
6. Describe the most significant continuous improvement project that you led. What was the catalyst to this change
and how did you go about it? What was the outcome?
7. Tell me about a time when you used feedback about your team to drive a change. How did you gather or receive
feedback on your team's performance? What was the outcome? (Manager)
 INVENT AND SIMPLIFY

Definition and Indicators

Invent and Simplify - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Give me an example of a complex problem you solved with a simple solution. What made the problem
complex? How do you know your solution addressed the problem?
2. Describe the most innovative thing you’ve done and why you thought it was innovative. Ask for one or two
more examples to see if it's a pattern of innovative thinking. What was the problem it was solving? What was
innovative about it?
3. Tell me about a time when you were able to make something simpler for customers. What drove you to
implement this change? What was the impact?
4. Describe a time when you influenced and drove new thinking and innovation out of your team. Give an
example of how your approach led to a specific innovation.
5. Tell me about a time when you had a challenging problem or situation that the usual approach wouldn't
address. How did you select an alternative approach? What alternative approach(es) did you consider? What
was the end result? What was the impact?
6. Tell me about a novel idea you had or decision you made that had a big impact on your business. What was
novel about it?
7. Tell me about a time when you enabled your team/a team member to implement a significant change or
improvement. What problem were you trying to solve? How did you measure success? What was the end
result/impact? (Manager)
 Learn and Be Curious

Definition and Indicators

Learn and Be Curious - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Tell me about a time when you realized you needed a deeper level of subject matter expertise to do your job
well. What did you do about it? What was the outcome? Is there anything you would have done differently?
2. Describe a time when you took on work outside of your comfort area. How did you identify what you needed to
learn to be successful? How did you go about building expertise to meet your goal? Did you meet your goal?
3. Tell me about a time when you didn’t know what to do next or how to solve a challenging problem. How do you
learn what you don't know? What were the options you considered? How did you decide the best path forward?
What was the outcome?
4. We all have things about ourselves we'd like to improve on at work. Give me an example of something that
you've worked on to improve your overall work effectiveness. What resources did you identify to help you
develop? What was the impact?
5. Give me an example of a time when you explored a new or unexpected area of an existing space. Why hadn't
this been explored already? Why did you move forward? What were the results or what was the impact?
6. Describe a time when someone on your team challenged you to think differently about a problem. What was
the situation? How did you respond? What was the outcome?
7. Tell me about a time when you used external trends to improve your own company's products or services. How
did you keep up to date with external trends? How did you decide to apply them to your own company? What
was the result?
 OWNERSHIP

Definition and Indicators

Ownership - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility. Why was it
important? What was the outcome?
2. Describe a time when you didn't think you were going to meet a commitment you promised. How did you
identify the risk and communicate it to stakeholders? Is there anything you would do differently?
3. Give me an example of an initiative you undertook because you saw that it could benefit the whole company
or your customers, but wasn’t within any group’s individual responsibility so nothing was being done.
4. Tell me about a time when you made a hard decision to sacrifice short term gain for something that would
create long term value for the business. What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have
done anything differently?
5. Describe a time when you had to transition a project you owned to a new owner. What steps did you take to
make sure the transition went smoothly? Tell me about a time that you chose to get involved in a project that you
had already transitioned to somebody else. What was the situation? Why was it important to get involved?
6. Tell me about a time when you saw a peer struggling and decided to step in and help. What was the situation?
Why did you decide to step in? What actions did you take?
 THINK BIG

Definition and Indicators

Think Big - Suggested Behavioral Interview Questions

Please choose 2-3 questions below for your interview.

1. Tell me about time when you were working on an initiative or goal and saw an opportunity to do something
much bigger or better than the initial focus. Did you take that opportunity? Why or why not? What was the
outcome?
2. Give me an example of how you have changed the direction or view of a specific function/department and
helped them embrace a new way of thinking. Why was a change needed? What was the outcome?
3. Give me an example of a time you proposed a novel approach to a problem. What was the problem and why did
it require a novel approach? Was your approach successful?
4. Tell me about a time when you drove adoption for your vision/ideas. How did you know your vision/idea was
adopted by others? How did you drive adoption for your vision/ideas? How did you track adoption? Would you
do anything differently?
5. Give me an example of an idea or vision you had which was adopted by global stakeholders. How did you drive
adoption for your vision/ideas? How did you track adoption? Would you do anything differently?
6. Tell me about a time when you thought differently to improve a process that was working. What assumptions
did you have to question? How did you evaluate if the change improved the process? Knowing what you know
now, would you do anything differently?
7. Tell me about a time when you encouraged a team member or organization to take a big risk. How did you
balance the risk against existing business goals? What was the outcome? What did you learn from this situation?
(Manager)
8. Tell me about a time when you established a vision for a (team, product, initiative) when there wasn't one. How
did you gain buy-in and drive execution? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?
(Manager)
STAR WORKSHEET
Your Behavioral Question: __________________________________________________________________ Leadership Principle:
______________________________________
 Choose behavioral question that provoke specific examples or stories for your assigned Leadership Principle(s).
 Process the example using STAR. Stories have beginnings (Situation/Task), middle (Actions) and ends (Results).
 Once you have established the story, PROBE to dive deeper on your assigned competency (Leadership Principle), get clarity or pursue a
concern.
 If appropriate, CHALLENGE the candidate’s statements, decisions or thought process.
SITUATION/TASK - Describe the situation/task you faced and the Notes

S context of the story

Answers the questions: where did this occur, when did it happen, why
is it important?
Probing Questions:
 Why is this important? What was the goal?

T
 What was the initial scope of the project? What were the
challenges?
 What were the risks and potential consequences if nothing
happened?
Challenge Questions:
 Why did you choose this story to illustrate a xyz accomplishment?
 What other stories can you think of that demonstrate…xyz?
 Could you come up with an example that is more recent?
ACTION - What actions did you take?

A Answers the questions: what did you personally own, how did you do it,
who else was involved?
Probing Questions:
 Deep probe functional expertise and/or assigned core
competency.
 Were you the key driver or project owner?
 What was your biggest contribution? What unique value did you
bring?
 What were the most significant obstacles you faced? How did you
overcome them?
Challenge Questions:
 What did you do specifically versus the team?
 How did you set priorities…deal with xyz problem… or get manager
buy-in?
 What decisions did you challenge? Why? How did you influence
the right outcome?
RESULTS - How did you measure success for this project? What

R results did you achieve?

$ Cost savings, revenue generation
# Quantify to understand volume, size, scale
% Percentage change, year over year improvements
 Time to market, implementation time, time savings
 Impact on the customer, the team
 Quality improvements
Probing Questions:
 Why did you choose to focus on these results? What other results
were important?
 You mentioned revenue, what percentage change is that year over
year?
 What trade-offs did you have to make to achieve this? (quality,
cost, time)
 I’m concerned about…(the time it took, the volume, the customer
impact), tell me more…
Challenge Questions:
 What were the lessons learned? What would you have done
differently?
 How would you implement this at Amazon?
 How did these results compare to your actual goals? (refer back to
goal stated in Situation)