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The question for today is, “What is it you would like to develop as a leader?” Fun trap question.
Why is it a trap question? Easy. Because, basically in a positive way, being asked to talk about your weaknesses. After all, a lot of people would talk about professional deficiencies that they have, right? That is the temptation that people would have. “Oh! I think I could be better at this!” “Oh, I think I could be better that!” “This is what I believe I need to develop.”
Buzzer sound. Wrong answer.
I think is a place for sincerity, but not with a question like this. I think the best way to approach answering the question like this is, instead of saying anything self-critical, or overtly self-critical, I think the way to answer this question is by talking about more and different. After all, for most people who are asked this question, I don’t care if you are a lead in an organization, a manager, a director, a VP… Whomever, the biggest issue is more and different.
More experience. More diverse experiences. These become the ideal ways to answer this. Let me illustrate.
Let’s say, you have come out of the sales organization or a particular type of sales organization where you know everyone and everything and that organization and, so much of what you’re doing, and is based upon your knowledge of their firm in the people at it. What you want to do is get parachuted into organizations, or a different organization, where you don’t know the people you don’t have a sense of what they can do because you haven’t work with them before. Thus, it becomes a learning experience for you as to how to size new people up, how to develop relationships, trust, rapport and such, so that you can start inspiring your team to great things.
Again, you don’t do things to criticize yourself. You talk about situations where they are different than what you have been in. Different in terms of the nature of the work, the people, and getting parachuted in with limited information and having to sort things out on your own. Different than what you did before, that would stretch you and help you develop your leadership
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