Positive Indicators

• Takes ownership for all responsibilities and honours commitments.
• Delivers outputs for which one has responsibility within prescribed time, cost and quality standards.
• Operates in compliance with organizational regulations and rules.
• Supports subordinates, provides oversight and takes responsibility for delegated assignments.
• Takes personal responsibility for his/her own shortcomings and those of the work unit, where applicable.

Negative Indicators

• Defers responsibility.
• Does not deliver on commitments.
• Produces poor-quality work.
• Is unaware of standards that need to be achieved.
• lakes longer than is efficient to achieve quality.
• Compromises standards easily; cuts corners.
• Is unconcerned with the standards of other people’s work once it has been delegated.

Sample Questions

Give me an example of when it has been particularly important for you to produce high-quality work.

• Why did the work have to be of such a high standard?
• How did you ensure that these standards were met?
• What would you do to improve the quality of your work?

Give me an example of when time pressures prevented you from spending a lot of time on a task.

• What implications did this have for the quality of your work?
• How did you ensure that the task was done properly?
• What would you do differently in the future?

Describe a time when you did not meet your usual standards of work.

• What alerted you to this?
• How did you overcome the problem?
• What were the long-term consequences?

Describe a time when you failed to complete a task on time.

• Why was this?
• What steps had you taken to avoid this?
• What lessons did you learn?

Describe a time when you delegated a task to another person.

• How did you enable them to carry out the work?
• How did you follow up with them?
• Who had responsibility for the work?
• How was this responsibility established?

What kinds of regulations or procedures do you have to respect at the moment?

• What impact does this have on the way you work?
• How well do you manage to keep to them?
• What problems do you have adhering to them?

Tell me about a time when it was particularly important for you to take responsibility for your actions.

• What had you done that you had to take responsibility for your actions?
• Why was taking responsibility so important?
• How did you make this known to others?

When, on reflection, were you conscious that your team’s results/output could have been better?

• What did you do to address the issue?
• How responsible were you for the team’s results/output?
• What was achieved?
• What feedback did you have on the subsequent performance of the team?