I came across a snippet of a TED talk by Adam Grant, in which he suggested that an excellent interview question is, “Tell me about four people whose career trajectory you’ve had a positive influence on.” The full talk is on the TED page; you can jump to the snippet at around 11:30 in the video.
He suggests you pay attention to this aspect of the answer: whether the person tells you about people above or below them on a work hierarchy. If they talk about helping people who are more junior to them, you’ve got a giver and leader on your hands. If they talk about helping people who are more senior to them, you’ve got someone who is effective at kissing up to people with power, and that focus can hurt the culture of the organization.
Now, probably there’s a time and a place for both attributes, but I have been captured by the question, and will be thinking about it for some time.
