If You Know Your Boss is 100% Wrong About Something How Would You Handle It?

If you know your boss is 100% wrong about something how would you handle it? This is a question most people HATE, however I feel it is a good question to be posed. It shows a lot about your character, and especially if the person who is interviewing you WILL be your boss, it may be best answered as personally as you feel. If you can relate this question to your current/previous boss that gives the interviewer the impression that not only are you a good judge of character, but also that you understand people are different and this situation may need approaching in a different way with a different boss, after all, how can you really say how you would deal with someone you don’t know yet?

Example Answers

#1

“If I were sure my manager was wrong about something I would talk to them about it and discuss my thoughts, after all, my boss is human, and may not realise they have made an error. I would explain why I thought they were wrong, and what I thought was wrong. If we reached a deadlock I would suggest conferring with other colleagues about the issue. My present manager is very good at listening when I feel he is wrong about something, and if it comes to division we always resolve it by asking the rest of the team and the majority vote goes. We learn by the results who was right.”

#2

“My current manager is very uptight and likes to always be right. If he asks me to do something and I know his way of carrying the task out will fail I will try and advise him of it, but he will usually demand I do it his way. So I obey his orders, and he does usually understand when it goes wrong that it is because of his instruction. He learns that the procedure he asked me to follow does not work, and I am not open to complaint of insubordination.”

#3

“Having always been the ‘Boss’ I can appreciate that sometimes the boss can get it wrong. When I was the manager at the last bar I worked in, I had been changing the lines a certain way all the time. I hired a new supervisor who came in and I could tell when changing the lines he wasn’t comfortable about something, so I asked what. He explained that I was doing it wrong, and that he had been taught a much more efficient method. HE demonstrated his method and I had to agree it was better. I would like to think in a similar situation I could approach my manager and say “Try this”. At the end of the day there is nothing to lose by trying something new, and if it doesn’t work, I’m more than happy to do as the boss says.”

Good luck.

Photo by: HansKristian