How would you handle a situation in which your senior management or board of directors asked for an outcome that you believed to be impossible to accomplish, given the resources available?

Avoid bold answers. Navigating this situation requires diplomacy and caution. You don't want to react with silence or fear, but you also need to demonstrate that you understand the trickiness of giving 'bad news' to powerful people who may not want to hear it.

"My response would depend on how well I knew those who were asking for the unrealistic outcome and what kinds of communication I'd had with them before the request. If it's the first time I'm hearing from the board of directors, I'd consult my supervisor for assistance so that information could be shared with them responsibly and respectfully. If I had regularly attended board meetings for a year when the request came up, I might create a one-page graphic to help them understand the costs of their request compared to the resources available. I would, in either case, propose an alternative that was feasible with current resources and at least made some strides toward the outcome they were hoping for."