What boards are really looking for when they ask about leading change

In many senior charity interviews, candidates are asked some version of the same question:

“Can you tell us about a time you led significant change?”

Many candidates reach for the same example: COVID. It’s understandable — the pandemic required organisations to adapt quickly and leaders to make difficult decisions under unprecedented pressure.

Having heard this example many times in senior leadership interviews, we’ve found that planned change often reveals more about a leader’s judgement than change imposed by external circumstances.

When boards ask about leading change, they are often trying to understand how a candidate approaches decisions where the path forward is not obvious. How do they build support for change? How do they respond when people disagree? How do they create confidence when there isn’t a shared sense of urgency?

Those questions are often easier to answer through examples of planned change than crisis response.

Why COVID examples are so common

For many leaders, the pandemic was one of the most challenging periods of their careers.

Services were redesigned, teams worked in entirely new ways and organisations were often making decisions with limited information. Leaders had to support staff, beneficiaries and stakeholders through significant uncertainty while continuing to deliver essential services.

Those experiences demonstrate resilience, adaptability and the ability to lead under pressure. They also tend to be memorable, which is why they feature so frequently in senior leadership interviews.

The challenge with COVID as a change example

The challenge with COVID as a change example is not that it was less significant.

What makes it different is that the need for change was rarely in question. Between government restrictions, public health guidance and on-the-ground operational realities, organisations had little choice but to respond.

A new strategy, a service redesign or a change in organisational structure may have a clear rationale, but people will not always agree on the best way forward.

In those situations, leadership involves building a case for change, weighing competing perspectives and creating enough confidence for people to move forward together.

Why planned change often makes a stronger example

These examples often give candidates more opportunity to demonstrate how they think and lead.

You might draw on examples such as:

• Reshaping organisational strategy
• Introducing a new operating model
• Redesigning services
• Changing funding approaches
• Strengthening governance or accountability structures

None of these changes is driven by an external crisis, yet they require difficult decisions and can have a significant impact across an organisation.

Leaders need to weigh competing views, assess risks and decide whether the organisation is ready to move forward. They also need to build trust and confidence among the people who will be affected.

This is often where boards gain the clearest insight into a leader’s judgement. They aren’t simply assessing whether someone has experienced change, they’re trying to understand how decisions were made, what trade-offs were involved and how people were brought along.

What boards are really listening for

When boards ask candidates about leading change, they aren’t looking for a perfect outcome.

Most experienced trustees and senior leaders understand that change isn’t linear; priorities shift, new information emerges and decisions need reviewing.

What they are often trying to understand is how a leader thinks, so useful elements to include are:

• Why the change was needed and what evidence informed the decision
• What alternatives were considered and how risks were weighed
• How people were engaged throughout the process
• What you learned, particularly if things did not go entirely as expected

The strongest examples help a panel understand not just what changed, but the judgement behind the change.

Learn more about using the STAR method of answering interview questions.

What boards learn from your example

COVID examples often demonstrate resilience, adaptability and operational leadership.

Planned change often reveals how leaders make decisions, build support and create momentum when the path forward is less obvious.

Those are the insights boards are often looking for when they explore a candidate’s experience of leading change.