Explain a time when you disagreed with your boss. How did you handle this situation?
Give an example of a situation that was fairly easily resolved. Suggesting a compromise puts you in a great position with your boss, because it shows your desire to work together and your creative problem-solving ability. If you share a situation where you could not find a common ground, discuss how you were willing to share your opinion, and also willing to let your boss decide. This shows your humility and willingness to pick your battles, letting the small things slide to focus on more important issues.
"Working on a budget for an event, I shared it with my boss to get his approval. He wanted to go with a vendor who did flowers for us in the past because they were cheaper. I explained my experience with them, but my boss insisted we use them. I asked if I could take a couple of hours to get bids from a few other florists before we made a decision and he agreed that was a good idea. I ended up finding a better florist with a solid reputation who gave us a great product and we stayed within our budget."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
There was recently an update to one of our webinar tools. The change was said to enhance all audio for VOIP. We experienced issues using ____ in the past, which resulted in us using a third party for audio conferencing. Excited by the news, my manager decided we should update all our webinar rooms to ____ immediately. I was hesitant and disagreed about making such a sudden change without testing. We were able to come to the middle ground and agreed to do a slow roll-out with X amount of rooms before committing to changing all 30 or so rooms.
As a result, we ended up finding that this update was still dropping calls and didn't quite stack up to the third party audio tool we used. I saved my team a lot of time that would have spent re-educating our presenters and re-writing best practices, only to return back to our original practice.
Rachelle's Feedback
This is a perfect example of disagreeing professionally and stating your case in a way that makes sense for all stakeholders. Was your manager pleased with your recommendation in the end?
