Recently I’ve been coaching senior executives whose organisations are going through major transformation. Executive teams are shrinking. Roles are disappearing. New, broader mandates are being created and experienced leaders are having to apply for roles that look familiar on paper but demand something very different in practice.
What’s striking is this: everyone I’m working with is credible, capable and successful. And yet, many risk underperforming at interview — not because they lack experience, but because they are showing up with the wrong identity.
Your interview identity is not about polishing your CV or rehearsing better answers. It’s about deciding who you need to be at interview so that your answers land with coherence, conviction and authority. The panel are trying to assess: Can this person lead the change required of them now?
All are capable on paper. The risk is that candidates fall back on describing what they’ve done before, or explaining the theory of how they would approach the new role.
This is part of what they need to convey, however, to land it with congruence and conviction you need to communicate who you are as a leader and how that will enable you to deliver the new mandate of these new roles. This is about ensuring that the panel believe that you have the qualities to lead the remit. This applies equally to people stepping into promotion for example, moving from Finance Director to CEO. This requires a difference in posture from the candidate, and this can come from working out what your interview identity is.
One client was applying for a newly created executive role in the health sector, designed to deliver a bold new strategy. She had a complex background — clinically trained, moved into management, experienced in system change.
Initially, she hid behind process, data and technical language. Yet her career showed something else entirely: a pattern of disruption, courage and innovation.
The interview wasn’t asking her to explain the system. It was asking her to challenge it. Once we named that as her interview identity, her answers changed — and so did how she was perceived.
So how do you work out your interview identity?
The core question you need to answer is: What do I stand for as the leader of this mandate?
To answer this the following questions can be helpful:
- If we stripped away job titles and technical language, what does this role exist to do?
- Why should your key stakeholders listen to you? And when the data/argument is contested, politically uncomfortable or inconvenient, what gives you authority then?
- How would you describe your role to a sceptic in one sentence?
- If you were 6 months into the role what would people consistently notice you are doing?
The biggest trap at senior interviews is over-relying on what you’ve done before. Panels already know you’re competent. What they’re trying to assess is whether you can lead what’s needed next.
This means shifting from expert to leader. From explaining to embodying. From describing activity to demonstrating judgement.
Think of your interview performance as a leadership act, not a communication exercise.
Photos Tahir Osman @unsplash.com
#career coaching #interviewpreparation #interviewcoaching
