How to Pass the Leadership Competency Interview: What CHROs Actually Score
You have led teams of 30. You have delivered projects worth millions. You have a list of accomplishments that fills two pages. And the CHRO just asked you: "Tell me about a time you developed someone on your team." You are drawing a blank — not because you have not done it, but because you never framed your leadership in terms of what happened to OTHER people. David Nakamura has designed leadership competency frameworks for three Fortune 500 companies. He says the pattern is always the same: "Candidates at this level can all talk about what they built. Almost none of them can talk about who they built."
Why This Conversation Goes Wrong
Every story stars you as the hero. At the Director level and above, individual heroics are a red flag, not a strength. If every story ends with you saving the project, the CHRO hears: this person cannot delegate, cannot develop others, and will burn out their team.
Your failure story is not actually a failure. "My biggest failure was working too hard" is not self-awareness. It is evasion. David is looking for a real failure — one where your decision caused harm, where you learned something uncomfortable, where the lesson changed how you lead.
You describe managing instead of leading. Tracking timelines, running stand-ups, and reviewing deliverables is management. Leadership is setting direction under ambiguity, making people better than they were, and driving change that people initially resist. The competency framework distinguishes between these explicitly.
The Multiplier Evidence Method
At the Director level, the question shifts from "What can you do?" to "What can you make others do?" The Multiplier Evidence Method structures every leadership answer around the impact you had on people, teams, and capability — not just on outcomes.
Anchor on the person, not the project
Instead of "I led the digital transformation," start with "I inherited a team of 12 who had never shipped a product without waterfall methodology." The human context — who they were before you arrived — sets up the leadership story.
Describe the capability you built, not the result you delivered
"After 6 months, three team leads were running their own sprint planning without me in the room." This is multiplier evidence. You did not just deliver a project. You built an organization that can deliver projects without you.
Name a specific person and their trajectory
"My senior analyst, Priya, was technically excellent but hesitant to present to leadership. I co-presented with her three times, then had her present solo. She is now a Director at another company." Specificity is not optional — it is the difference between a credible story and a platitude.
Include the real failure — the one that stings
David will ask about failure. Give him one that matters. "I promoted someone too quickly because I confused competence with readiness. They struggled, the team lost confidence, and I had to have the hardest conversation of my career to restructure their role." That is a leadership answer.
Connect to the role you are interviewing for
"The team I would lead here is going through a similar transformation — 40 people across three time zones, shifting from legacy to modern tooling. My experience building that capability at my previous company maps directly." Make the connection explicit.
The moment that changes everything
He is scoring you on ONE question you have not prepared for.
David saves his most important question for the end: "Tell me about your biggest leadership failure and what it taught you." This is not a trick question. It is a calibration instrument. After 45 minutes of polished stories about your accomplishments, David needs to see if the real you matches the presented you. Candidates who offer a sanitized failure — "I was too ambitious with the timeline" — get a mediocre score. Candidates who describe a genuine mistake with real consequences — and who can articulate exactly how it changed their leadership approach — get the highest marks. David's rubric literally has a column labeled "Authentic self-awareness." It is weighted at 20% of the total score. The failure question is not a trap. It is an invitation to demonstrate the one quality that separates good managers from real leaders.
What to Say (and What Not To)
Instead of
"I led a team of 30 through a major transformation."
Try this
"I inherited a team of 30 who had never worked across time zones. Within a year, they were self-organizing across three geographies without my involvement in daily decisions."
Instead of
"My biggest failure was being too hands-on."
Try this
"I promoted a team lead before she was ready because I confused her technical ability with leadership readiness. It damaged her confidence and the team's trust. I learned that developing someone means pacing their growth, not accelerating it."
Instead of
"I'm a strong leader who delivers results."
Try this
"Three of my former direct reports are now Directors. I measure my leadership by what happens to people after they leave my team."
Instead of
"I drove the project to completion."
Try this
"I set the vision and removed the blockers. My senior leads drove execution. By month three, I was not in the critical path — and that was the goal."
The Bigger Picture
A Korn Ferry study of 7,500 leadership hires found that 46% of Director-and-above hires fail within 18 months. The top predictor of failure is not lack of technical skill — it is inability to develop and retain a team. Competency interviews are designed to filter for this specific risk.
Harvard Business Review research shows that leaders who describe themselves as "multipliers" — people who make everyone around them better — lead teams with 2x the output of leaders who describe themselves as "achievers." The language you use in the interview predicts the kind of leader you will be.
Internal Google data revealed that the strongest predictor of management effectiveness is not IQ, experience, or even EQ — it is whether the manager's direct reports say "I am growing in this role." David's competency framework is measuring exactly this.
Practice This Conversation
15 minutes · AI voice roleplay with David Nakamura
Reading about this is step one. Practicing it changes everything. Sonitura lets you rehearse this exact conversation with David Nakamura, a realistic AI chief human resources officer at a global manufacturing company who reacts to your words in real time. It takes 15 minutes. Practice with a CHRO AI who listens for multiplier evidence and pushes you on the failure question you have been avoiding.
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