What Were/Are Your Boss’ Strengths and Weaknesses?

[JeffAltmanCoach]

SUMMARY

This is 1 of those great questions that is designed to see if they can flush out that you are an imbecile!  I would suggest a very textured answer.  The question is, “What are (or were) your boss’ strengths and weaknesses?”

Some people make the mistake of going off on this enormous tirade about their boss.  They say nothing positive about them; they just go off half cocked, criticizing and abusing them for some perceived mistake.  Welcome folks.  Your boss is a human being  and doesn’t do everything right.

Here’s the way I would suggest answering this question.  It isn’t hard but follow this for 2nd. “My boss’ strengths Were that he or she interfaced very well with senior management and shield us a lot of the political stuff that went on.  Some of the palace intrigue they can sometimes occur in decisioning.  Then, they would come back to us with what the solutions were or what the mandates were so that, in this way, we were able to perform her job particularly well.”  Got that?  I think that is a nice little answer.

Here are the weaknesses. “Our boss did a great job of shielding us from…”And feed the same thing back to them.  When they look at you puzzled and smiling, you can say, “There are 2 sides to this coin.  What he or she could have done a little bit better  is make us aware of some of the things that were going on so that we could learn and, in this way, be prepared to step into his or her shoes so that when was our time to step up, maybe he would change jobs, maybe she will the getting a promotion 1 of us wound up with wind up stepping into this role, we will be prepared for a little bit better had here she just opened up a little bit about what was going on and thus the reasons behind what the decisions were. what he or she attempted to communicate with their peers or managers, what their preferences were and how decisions were made from up high.  That would have been helpful to us.Just shielding us was a good 1st thing.  What they could’ve done a little bit better was teachers what went into the decisions so that we would be prepared.”

I think that’s a nice way  to answer it.  It’s the same answer flipped the back and expanded upon to give texture.  And to me, texture to an answer is the big part of answering tough interview questions like this.

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