Our senior project managers are expected to lead through influence. How do you plan to gain the respect and confidence of your stakeholders?

Remember to include more than one approach in your response. Respect is earned in a variety of ways, and a multifaceted approach demonstrates your understanding of this concept. Also, it is important to consider using humble language. While you may be excellent at your work, approaching the question with overconfidence is unlikely to result in your making the best impression possible during your interview.

"The first thing I would do to gain the respect of my stakeholders would be to listen and learn about their operations. While I have seven years of experience leading enterprise IT projects, there is always something new to learn and every group operates differently. The political scene is also different for each group. In my experience, stakeholders appreciate working with project managers who take the time to learn about their business, their goals, and their preferences.

Additionally, I would offer expert-level IT and domain specific knowledge, and I would be honest about areas I need to research. I find that others respect those who speak confidently about what they know while being humble about what they need to learn.

Finally, I would take end-to-end ownership and be accountable for my own work and the work of my project teams. I would own mistakes and ensure that they are avoided in the future. I would work hard to continually improve. I feel confident that these three strategies would allow me to be successful as an influential leader within my stakeholder groups here at XYZ company."