How to Answer Interview Questions About When Your Boss Is Wrong

How to Answer Interview Questions About When Your Boss Is WrongHow to Answer Interview Questions About When Your Boss Is WrongOccasionally an interviewer will ask you a question about how to handle a situation when your babo is wrong. He or she may ask, What do you do when you know your babo is wrong? or If you know your boss is 100 percent wrong about something, how would you handle this? Why the Interviewer Wants to Know An interviewer will ask you this to binnensee how you deal with a difficult situation or if you have had difficulty working with a manager. He or she will also askthis question to see how you view your relationship with your boss. Tips on Giving the Right Answer This is one of those questions that should be answered carefully.Interview questions about bosses can be tricky. You want to demonstrate your tactfulness when dealing with your boss, but you also want to show that you know when to point out someones errors. Dont Say It Never Happened Interviewers do nt want to hear that you never correct a boss this is unrealistic, and a sign that you dont think for yourself. They do want to hear how you did so politely and diplomatically.Use an Example If you have dealt with a situation like this with a former employer, use that as an example. Explain what the situation was, how you handled it, and the ultimate result. Answering this question like a behavioral interview question will provide the interviewer with a concrete example of how you handle these kinds of situations. Explain That This Situation Is Rare While you should provide an example of a time you tactfully told your boss her or she was wrong, you want to explain that this does not happen often. You do not want to seem like the kind of employee who always questions his or her employer. Ideally, your example will be from a situation that directly affected you and your teams ability to complete a job successfully. It will also show how you turned the situation into a positive experie nce.Explain How You Told Your Boss One of the reasons an interviewer will ask you this question is to see how tactfully you dealt with your boss. Therefore, when describing an example, you want to emphasize the polite way in which you spoke to your boss. If you made sure to speak to him in private (and not in front of his other employees), say so. This shows that you are a thoughtful employee who thinks carefully about communication. Dont Talk Badly About a Former Boss Even if you are noting a mistake a boss made, do not speak negatively of your employer. Even if you had a lot of problems with your boss, or she was often wrong, do not express this. Explain that the times when you had to correct your boss were rare.Explain the Result Tell the interviewer the positive results of the conversation. Perhaps your boss thanked you for sharing this information with him or her. Maybe an error was corrected, which ultimately helped the company. Sample Answers Here are two examples of an answer you could give during an interview when the interviewer has asked you the What do you do when you know your boss is wrong? or the If you know your boss is 100 percent wrong about something, how would you handle this? question. 1. A few rare times in the past, I have spoken to a former employer about a particular error. Recently, my boss assigned our team a project. I knew the data he gave us was a couple of years old, and that there was more current data. Working with the most up-to-date information was vital to the success of the project. I went into my bosss arbeitszimmer and spoke to him privately about the error, merely showing him the most recent data. He thanked me and immediately updated the information. We completed the project with great success. 2. Occasionally in the past, I have spoken to a boss about an error, but only when I thought the error would negatively impact the company. For example, a former boss instituted a new online storage system and was unaware th at the system was not easily accessible on employee computers. During her daily open office hours, I privately discussed the issue with my boss and pointed out the effect these problems had on our ability to complete assigned tasks. She was so glad I brought the issue to her attention that she put me in charge of a task force that solved the error, resulting in increased productivity for all employees.