Over the holidays I watched the series Ted Lasso (Apple TV). I had a trip to New Zealand and downloaded the series and proceeded to be the weird person on the plane with my random laughter and tears while watching. At the moment in the media, there is a lot of negativity about the construction industry. Yesterday, the Sydney Herald stated “Nearly 2000 construction companies across Australia entered administration between July 2022 and July 2023” and it is expected more to fail. We hear about the cost of living pressure, interest rates rising, youth crime, the list goes on. In contrast, Ted Lasso is uplifting in its message and I think that is why it has become so popular.
Circulating social media is the 13 Leadership lessons from Ted Lasso – it goes as follows:
1. Be sincere.
2. Stay teachable
3. See good in others
4. Happiness is a choice
5. Winning is an attitude
6. Have confidence in yourself
7. Optimists take more chances,
8. Everyone differs from everyone else
9. Courage is the willingness to attempt
10. Vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness
11. Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing
12. Be curious, not judgmental
13. Be a goldfish - Don't allow one bad deed to define who you are. In less than ten seconds, forget about it like a goldfish.
In our industry, we often recruit and promote the strongest technical people into management roles and sometimes don’t give them the training to become leaders within the organisation. When recruiting roles, equally important to the technical skills are the traits of optimism, courage, confidence, curiosity and resilience. One of the ways we do this is by asking behavioural descriptive questions. E.G: Give me an example of when you set a goal and how you achieved it. You need to ascertain how high their “joy ceiling” is.
As a candidate answering these types of questions, can be quite nerve-racking, but the advice is always to state what the issue was, why the issue happened, the steps you took, and the outcome.
Most behaviour descriptive questions fall into the following categories:
- Problem-Solving
- Working on a Team
- Biggest Failures
- Leadership
- Personal Stress
So if you are planning an interview, choose questions that showcase the traits you are trying to identify. For candidates, before the interview, think of some examples you can bring up if asked. For any help with the construction of behavioural interviews, contact the Development Careers team for ideas.
