Example of Leadership, confusion with fancy titles

A person could be the CEO of a company and yet be a poor leader. The point I am trying to make is, do not confuse fancy titles with leadership. A standard question when interviewing for jobs or applying to MBA school is “Provide an example of when you have demonstrated leadership” .  An answer I recently got from a student was “I was the chief coordinator for a festival in my college. The festival was a big success”. Before we get into the problems with this response, let us understand what leadership means. Leadership is demonstrated when an individual sees or does things differently from most others and in the process improves the situation, regardless of title or position. A few examples that would qualify are:

• Despite the recession, you raised sponsorship of Rs 5 lakhs for your college festival by adopting innovative ways (examples necessary)
• When the objectives of the project you were working on were not clear to you, you took it upon yourself (even though it was not your responsibility) to work with the customer, bring clarity to an otherwise ambiguous situation and in the process contributed to the success of the project. In other words, you showed leadership by taking ownership of a problem.

Back to the example of “chief coordinator”, I think the response could be a lot better if the student highlighted the size of the festival and the challenges he or she helped overcome through leadership.

Category: HR interview questions, tips

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