Patrick Lencioni's books sit on the shelves of plenty of leadership teams, ours included. His models are simple enough to remember in an interview room and specific enough to test.
The 20 questions below draw on 3 of his models to show how a candidate actually leads. Each section names the model it comes from, and each question comes with what a strong answer sounds like and what to watch for.
How to use these questions
Pick 6 to 8 for each interview. Decide before the first interview which traits matter most for this seat, and split the questions across your interviewers so each one covers different ground.
Ask for a story, then ask again. Lencioni recommends coming back to the same topic more than once, in different words. A rehearsed answer holds up the first time. The second and third time, you hear how the person actually thinks.
Check the answers with the people who worked for them. A candidate's former direct reports can tell you whether the stories hold up. We've written more about this in hiring for character and capability.
Ideal team player interview questions: humble, hungry and smart
In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni describes the 3 virtues of a great teammate.
Humble means putting the team ahead of yourself. Hungry means doing more than the job asks because you care about the result. Smart means people smart: reading a room and knowing how you come across.
He argues the danger is in having 2 without the third. A leader who is hungry and smart but not humble is what he calls the skillful politician, someone who knows how to look good while serving themselves. That's a common profile in a senior hire, and an expensive one.
Humble
1. "Tell me about a result you're proud of. Who else played a part in it?" Listen for specific names, offered without a second prompt. Watch for a story told in "I" from start to finish.
2. "What's a piece of feedback from the last 2 years that was hard to hear, and what did you change because of it?" Listen for a real change in how they work. Watch for feedback they dismissed, or a criticism turned into a hidden strength.
3. "Tell me about a time someone who reported to you was right and you were wrong." A humble leader tells this story easily. A leader who struggles to find an example is telling you something too.
Hungry
4. "What did you take on in your last role that wasn't part of your job?" Listen for initiative aimed at what the company needed. Watch for projects that mainly advanced the candidate.
5. "Walk me through a week when things got busy." Listen for steady effort and a sense of what mattered most. Hunger can tip into overwork, so treat 80-hour weeks told as a badge of honor with some caution.
6. "A year from now, what would you want to point to here and say you built it?" A hungry leader gives a specific answer tied to this role. A vague one usually means they haven't thought past getting the job.
Smart (people smart)
7. "Tell me about someone you found hard to work with. How did you handle it?" Listen for an understanding of the other person's point of view. Watch for contempt, even mild.
8. "Tell me about a conversation that went badly because of how you said something." People-smart leaders notice their effect on others and adjust. This question shows whether they've ever noticed.
9. "How would the people who report to you describe you to a friend?" Ask their references the same question and compare the answers.
Questions based on the five dysfunctions of a team
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni describes how teams break down in layers. Without trust, people avoid honest conflict. Without conflict, they never really commit to decisions, so they don't hold each other accountable, and the team stops paying attention to results.
A leader builds every layer or lets it crack. These questions test each one.
Trust
10. "When did you last tell your team 'I don't know' or 'I got that wrong'? What happened next?" Lencioni's trust is the kind built when leaders admit weakness openly. Listen for this as a normal habit, more than a single rare moment.
11. "You've just inherited a team that doesn't know you. What do you do in the first month?" Listen for time spent with people one-on-one and for honesty about the leader's own gaps.
Conflict
12. "Tell me about a disagreement on your leadership team that led to a better decision." Listen for comfort with debate. Watch for "we never really disagreed," which usually means the disagreement happened somewhere else.
13. "What do you do when a meeting is too quiet?" Strong leaders draw the disagreement out. Weak ones take silence as agreement.
Commitment
14. "Tell me about a decision you argued against and then had to carry out. How did you present it to your team?" Listen for full support once the call was made. Watch for a leader who made sure their team knew they'd been against it.
Accountability
15. "Tell me about a time you held a peer accountable, someone at your own level." Lencioni's model puts accountability between peers, which is harder than holding a direct report to account. Many leaders can only give an example from below them.
16. "Who on your last team was underperforming, and how long did it take you to deal with it?" Listen for the length of time as much as the outcome. Months of waiting is a pattern.
Results
17. "Tell me about a time you gave up something your own department wanted for a result the whole company needed." Listen for team-first thinking. Watch for a leader who measures success by their own department's numbers.
Do they want to lead for the right reasons?
In The Motive, Lencioni separates leaders who lead for the reward from leaders who lead because of the responsibility. Leaders in it for the reward skip the unpleasant parts of the job: the hard conversations, managing the leadership team, running good meetings and repeating the same message until everyone has it.
18. "Which parts of leading do you like least, and how do you make sure they still get done?" Every honest leader has an answer. Listen for a plan that doesn't depend on someone else doing it.
19. "What's the hardest conversation you've had with someone who reports to you this year?" Listen for a real conversation, handled in time and with care for the person.
20. "Why do you want to lead, beyond the title and the pay?" The best answers are about the people they'd be responsible for and what the company could become.
After the interview
Debrief the same day. Have each interviewer rate the candidate on humble, hungry and smart before comparing notes, so the loudest voice in the room doesn't set the score.
See them outside the interview room. Lencioni suggests spending time with a finalist in a normal setting, like a meal or a walk through the operation. How someone treats a server or a superintendent tells you more about humility than any answer they rehearsed.
Match the questions to the seat. A general manager or director of operations needs all 3 virtues, and the questions should follow what the role will demand. See what we look for in a home services general manager and a director of operations.
At FireSeeds we evaluate character and capability together, and humble, hungry and smart fit neatly on the character side. If you'd like more questions focused on culture, we have 14 culture fit interview questions. If you're hiring a leader now, start with a conversation.