Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

How have you pursued diversity?
Who and how many diverse candidates have you actually hired?
How did you get robust candidate pools?
How did you mentor the people you brought on board?
To tap into a candidate’s vision, Shelly asks what she calls “magic wand”
questions to draw out the big ideas that leadership confers—potentially game-
changing ideas that can bend an institution’s trajectory and change its culture.
If you had a magic wand here, what would you do with it?
How would you work with different constituencies?
What is your ambition for this institution and how would you achieve
it?
The magic wand invites the user to skip over politics and bureaucracy and
think creatively.
If red flags have come up through reference checks, Shelly asks about those,
too. She asks artfully, seeking candor and reflection rather than defensiveness or
evasion. Knowing that everyone on a university or college campus has an
opinion and just about every leader gets criticized by someone, she might ask:
What would your detractors say about you?
A self-aggrandizing answer masquerading as self-criticism doesn’t cut it. “I
work too hard and people don’t like it when I send out emails at 3 a.m.” is not
what she’s looking for. She wants honesty and realism; she listens for a
thoughtful response that suggests the candidate is aware of her foibles and cares
about how they play with the people around her. She considers this essential
because the complexity of an executive’s job requires a tapestry of relationships
to build consensus.
“Self-awareness is essential to being a successful leader,” Shelly explained
to me.

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Look Back, Look Ahead
Job interview questions fall into two constructs: what you have done and what
you will do. The first kind, behavioral questions, ask a candidate to look back on
what he or she has accomplished, achieved, or attempted. These questions dig
into the lessons that time and experience have imparted.
Can you provide an example of when you set a goal and a timetable
and achieved them?
Give me an example of how you responded when your boss asked you
for advice or asked you to do something that you disagreed with.
What’s the hardest decision you’ve had to make at work, and how did
you go about it?
These questions help shed light on how a job candidate has behaved under
specific circumstances. They probe for details. But more than merely revisiting
the past, they explore dilemmas and decisions that reveal ethics and values. The
ways a candidate confronted a difficult challenge or dealt with a setback
indicates how she might deal with problems in the new job.
Because past performance does not necessarily predict future results, good
interviews also include situational questions. These future-oriented questions
seek to reveal how a candidate would look forward and respond to a potential
decision or situation. The best questions combine the particulars of a situation
with a challenging choice.
Suppose your company had a very good year. You’ve been asked how
the additional profits should be spent. What would you
recommend?
If you were told that all departments had to cut 5 percent in spending
and you were responsible for the budget, how would you decide
where to cut?
A coworker tells you that she thinks she is not being paid fairly, that
other people at about the same level of work are making more than
she is. Now what?
There is a project the boss believes in passionately but that you think