How to answer
Tell me about a time you showed leadership.
Students reach for the biggest title they have held. The panel is usually more interested in a smaller moment, and in what you did when the group was not going your way.
What it is really asking
Whether you can take responsibility for a group’s work without taking it over. Medicine asks for both in the same day: being the one who decides on one task, and following someone else’s lead on the next.
The teamwork domain page covers how this is marked across the interview. This page is about the question itself.
Also asked as: “Describe a time you led a group.” “Are you more of a leader or a follower?” “What makes someone good at leading?”
What interviewers hear too often
- The title as the answer. Captain, prefect, president. A role is not an example. What you did in it is.
- Leading as giving orders. A story where the group did what you said and it worked. It leaves out the part the panel wants: what you did when they did not.
- A story with nobody else in it. If no one else in the story has a view, it is about you, not about leading.
What a good answer does
- One moment, not a tenure. A particular afternoon, decision or disagreement, told in a couple of minutes.
- Other people in it. What they wanted, what you noticed about them, and how that changed what you did.
- Something you would change. A line of honest reflection reads as more mature than a clean success.
Two openings
Both invented, and neither is yours to borrow.
The first names a role and a skill. The second starts a story with a real decision in it, which is what the panel would have asked about anyway.
The follow-ups to expect
- What did the people who disagreed with you think afterwards?
- Tell me about a time someone else led and you did not agree with them.
- How do you know when to step back?
- Who is the best leader you have worked under, and why?
Test your own draft
- The title test. Take the role out of your answer. If nothing is left, you have not told a story yet.
- The people test. Count the people in your story who have a view of their own. Fewer than two, and it is not about leading.
- The follower test. Have a second story ready where someone else led and you followed well. It is often the next question.
What it is marked on
Related questions
Other guides
- Start here What the interview is testing, and how the cycle runs.
- Timeline planner Put in your interview date and get a week by week plan.
- Pathway planner The whole road from school to consultant, drawn around your choices.
- Practice stations Real MMI stations with a two minute reading phase and a station clock.
- By university The interview at every undergraduate-entry school: format, timing, and what is marked.
- What is marked The six things every station marks, and how to practise each one.
- How to answer The questions every panel asks, what each is testing, and the follow-ups to expect.
- Question themes The subjects questions come from, from rural health to the profession, with prompts.
- Interview dates When each school sends invitations, holds interviews and makes offers this cycle.
- When you hear back Every school’s offer dates, and why the wait after the interview is so long.
- Formats What an MMI and a panel interview each are, and how to prepare for each.
- Interview soon? Days to go? What you can still book at short notice, and the prices.
- For parents Who your child is working with, and what I will not promise.
If you want a session
In a session I teach the structure, then ask the follow-ups until your answer holds. Thirty minutes, $40, online, credited to any package.