Our training specialist often meets with managers and supervisors to discuss upcoming training topics and approaches. Have you ever had difficulty communicating with a supervisor?
Possessing the skills to enhance communication in the workplace is a valuable asset, especially as a training specialist where teamwork and communication are significant factors to your success. When approaching this question, remember that the interviewer does not want to hear that you agree with everybody at all times. In a perfect world, you communicate well and get along with your supervisor or manager at all times. However, this is not always realistic. A response like that fails to give the decision-maker insight into your behaviors and communication style in the workplace. What matters the most is not that you have a perfect record with your supervisors but how you approach the situation where you disagree with a leader.
Show the interviewer that you can collaborate well with your leaders, especially when choosing training approaches and deciding on upcoming training session topics. If you've ever experienced a time when it was difficult to communicate with a supervisor, tell a brief story that highlights your actions and the result of your communication approach.
You can deliver this brief story using the STAR answer method:
- Situation: Provide the contextual information the interviewer needs to know to make sense of your story.
- Task: Continuing to set the stage, give the interviewer an idea of your role and responsibilities in this story.
- Action: Next, offer a detailed description of the steps you took in this story.
- Result: Last, talk about the specific, measurable outcomes that resulted from your actions.
When asked questions about how well you get along with your leaders, it's entirely acceptable to ask a question in return regarding the communication style of those you will answer to in this role. Be sure to uncover whether the company environment and leadership approach will be a fit for you.
"As a training specialist, I have learned a lot about communication and conflict management through my own career training. It is rare, but I have encountered times when I can't entirely agree with my supervisor. (Situation & Task) While working for Company XYZ as their training specialist, one of my leaders was under a lot of pressure to boost the performance of his sales team. The sales department had seen three underperforming business quarters, and now this sales director's job was potentially on the line. This director approached me and requested that I hold a training session focused solely on prospecting new customers. (Action) I listened to the sales director and asked questions about roadblocks he was feeling with his sales team. Then, I suggested gathering data to support the need before committing time and energy to a specific training topic. I recommended an anonymous employee survey to find out the most significant struggles the sales team was facing. This director was unhappy with my suggestion because he wanted to see action immediately. I could tell that he was becoming increasingly frustrated with my more calculated approach. Feeling this, I explained to him that I was approaching this situation to clarify the problem and resolve the core issue rather than place a bandaid on the concerns and fail to solve his problem for the long term. I talked about how long-term results will fair much better for him and his team in the end. (Result) Because I remained calm during this conversation and showed empathy for this sales director's situation, he came around and listened to what I had to say. We took three days to create and send out the employee survey. Then, we took another week to analyze the results from the sales team of over 100 people. When the results came in, there was an overwhelming amount of evidence that morale was low among the sales team, and many of the employees were struggling with the CRM, which made client follow-up cumbersome. This data showed us that we needed to focus on CRM training versus prospecting. In the end, the sales director thanked me for taking a more mindful approach to this roadblock. We built a sales training tailored to the employee's struggles and delivered it with great success. In the following two quarters, the team exceeded sales goals by 9%, and they are on track to exceed goals in Q3. When paired with an individual who communicates differently from me, I take the situation as an opportunity to learn, grow, and develop stronger professional communication skills. I have the confidence to take the initiative and share my perspective to reach common ground. It's important to have a strong relationship with my leaders built on mutual respect and clear communication. Does it sound to you that my communication approach is a fit for the leaders I will be reporting to in this role with Company ABC?"
If you have experienced communication challenges with a manager, first acknowledge that navigating differing perspectives is part of the learning process in any professional growth journey. Demonstrate self-awareness by summarizing the situation while owning any role you played in the misunderstanding.
However, focus most of the answers on the actions you took afterward to find common ground. Share how you leveraged empathy, patience, and influence skills to reconnect with that supervisor. Discuss identifying their underlying worries spurring resistance and addressing doubts through supportive facts. Convey resilience in persisting to build trust until you reach mutual understanding.
Highlight the communication modes and frequencies you instituted post-conflict to keep aligned going forward through project debriefs, active listening, and shared goal setting. Provide an example of how the relationship strengthened over time through transparency.
The goal is to convey maturity regardless of any differences that emerged initially with this leader. Demonstrate the interpersonal dexterity training specialists need for bringing people together across perspectives to achieve shared talent development objectives. Let resourcefulness and wisdom gained from the challenge shine as assets.
"Early in my training career, I had a manager concerned about the new employee orientation overhaul I proposed to senior leaders. In gathering training needs data through focus groups with hiring managers, they felt overwhelmed navigating our complex systems and policies while onboarding. I presented a case for extended onboarding with peer mentors to ease transitions.
However, my direct supervisor worried about bandwidth on current teams to support a buddy program. He initially pushed back against the lengthier orientation concept given headcount constraints in generalist roles suited for mentees.
I leveraged patience and our existing rapport to have an open dialogue on his hesitations. By addressing concerns transparently around bandwidth, we conceived department ambassadors across functions ready to mentor new hires while scaling knowledge. The collaborative debrief uncovered win-win refinements.
In the end, orientation satisfaction increased by 62% with the revamped structure including peer guidance. My manager appreciated our work together examining perspectives. This experience exemplified that when difficulties communicating with leadership arise, leaning into influence skills focused on the end goal drives compromise. Today this supervisor continues advocating for ongoing training innovations that move our organization forward thanks to transparent dialogues strengthening our alignment."
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
In the corporate environment, I've been fortunate to work with a plethora of people with unique skills and strong points. With this also comes clashing work styles. While I haven't had many experiences where I'd say I had difficulty with a supervisor, I will say I've had experiences where my supervisor and I have had different ideas about how our learning experiences should be presented. We've always come to solve this by listening to each other and understanding the other's purpose. This allows me to resonate with their reasoning and even see an opportunity to collaborate or blend ideas.
Rachelle's Feedback
I love that you start this answer on a positive note. That's a smart choice! Rather than give a general overview, this answer could be strengthened by providing a specific story-based response using the STAR answer method (Situation - Task - Action - Result). Stories are always more memorable and engaging than general overviews :)
Anonymous Answer
I remember when I was in X company, we needed to increase our team's productivity. My supervisor asked me as a trainer to shorten our training program so we can add more people to our ops team. I disagreed and explained that we can't do that as it will suffer our training effectiveness. Since it's 2 conflicting ideas, I sat down with him in private, we talked about the impact and help each other realize. Ultimately, I understood that the priority was to increase productivity, we adjusted our training curriculum but after a couple of months, we again did the original curriculum since the team was not able to perform well.
Rachelle's Feedback
This sounds like a difficult situation, indeed! It would be nice if you could include more details in this story-based example. For instance, I am a touch confused because it sounds like you came to a mutual understanding (you said: 'help each other realize'), but then the outcome was poor. What changes were you instructed to make, and what was your supervisors' methodology behind deciding what should be cut and what should be kept? Measurable results will have a big impact here, too if you can add them in.
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