How to Answer: Tell me about a time when your communication skills greatly benefited your team.
5. Tell me about a time when your communication skills greatly benefited your team.
How to Answer
The interviewer would like to know how your communication skills have benefited your team in the past. Strong communication skills are required to be an active leader. How have your communication skills helped your team in the past?
If you are struggling to come up with an answer to this question, here are a few examples that should turn the gears and help you think of a time when you communicated a message that benefited your co-workers.
- Maybe you were the first to hear of new corporate policy, and you alerted your co-workers to the new changes.
- Perhaps you created an efficient way to streamline a process, and you informed your team about this.
- Maybe you found a new product or service that had a benefit to your organization.
- Perhaps you realized an error in a project, and you alerted everyone of this before it became a significant problem.
Answer Example
"My team is made up of great communicators whom I have trained to take every piece of information and break it down to the simplest factor. This approach has greatly reduced in-house issues related to communication."
Admin
"As an administrative assistant, I am expected to pave the way for clear communication in the office. My ability to make timely and clear announcements positively helped our merger go more smoothly."
Manager
"We recently rolled out a large organizational change. I took a very transparent approach to communication throughout the process. I asked the team for feedback and buy-in, early in the process. We discussed some scenarios on what to expect. When the time came to roll out the change, there was minimal surprise with the new process. It was a success!"
Marketing
"I felt that some of the information our client was giving us was forced and repetitive. I asked my team to re-send the client intake form and to book a call with the director so that we could do a deeper dive into their needs before beginning their project. The discovery meeting was incredibly helpful and saved my team a great amount of potentially wasted hours."
Retail
"Our store recently went through a major renovation, and our sales team split into other locations during the reno project. I kept my team in the loop through group messaging, and we also met once per week for a drink and to discuss work. Keeping this level of camaraderie helped me to retain my team until we could be back to our location again."
Sales
"My communication skills make me very successful in sales. My clear communication style has greatly benefited my team and employer because it helps me to exceed performance targets consistently. When one person succeeds, the whole team benefits."
Teacher
"Last year a fellow teacher and I were asked to share a Grade 3/4 split class. To make this change seamless, we created a communication plan that included meeting once per week to review any hiccups. The entire faculty and our students benefitted from our ability to communicate well."
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Situation: Describe the context and situation. In this case, it's the technical project where communication issues arose.
Task: Explain your role and responsibility in the situation. Your task was to improve communication and address the team's confidence and emotional barriers.
Action: Detail the specific actions you took. You initiated one-on-one discussions with team members to understand their problems, including emotional concerns, and you suggested changes to the Project Manager to address these issues.
Result: Explain the outcomes of your actions. What positive changes occurred as a result of your intervention? What were the benefits to the team and the project?