How to answer interview questions about the Amazon leadership principle “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit” — Interview Genie

Tell me about the most complex problem you’ve ever worked on. Tell me about a time when understanding the details of a situation helped you arrive at a solution. Tell me about a time you utilized in depth data to come across a solution

How Should I Answer ‘Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit’ Interview Questions?

10 Amazon Leadership Principles Interview Questions

In this article, we’ll focus on these leadership principles and questions related to them:

• What Are Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles?
• Why Are Amazon’s Leadership Principles Important?
• How to Answer Amazon Leadership Principle Questions
• 35 Behavioral Interview Questions Based on Amazon’s Leadership Principles
• How to Ace the Amazon Tech Interview

What Are Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles?

Amazon’s leadership principles were pioneered and instituted by Chairman Jeff Bezos to evolve a culture that respects ethical and moral values. Below are the 14 leadership principles that are centric to behavioral interviews at Amazon:

• Ownership
• Customer obsession
• Leaders are right, a lot
• Invent and simplify
• Be curious
• Employ the highest standards
• Hire the best and develop them
• Build trust
• Think big
• Have a spine — disagree and commit
• Take calculated risks
• Be frugal
• Dive deep into tasks
• Deliver results

Why Are Amazon’s Leadership Principles Important?

Amazon’s leadership principles define the company’s core values and serve as a bedrock for ethics and conduct. By adhering to the leadership principles, employees can achieve memorable success in their personal growth efforts and contribute to the company’s overall success.

Questions around the leadership principles can feature in the on-site behavioral round or the bar-raiser round. A bar-raiser is part of a team of specially trained Amazon professionals whose main job is to maintain excellence while hiring candidates for roles across the board.

How to Answer Amazon Leadership Principle Questions

Amazon’s bar-raiser round evaluates your responses to behavioral questions and gauges if you’re the right fit for the role. The STAR method is a widely popularized method to answer behavioral interview questions at FAANG companies. The method fundamentally aims to frame responses based on real situations and incidents. Let’s look at it in slight detail:

STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. While answering leadership principle questions, make sure you address each of these areas to craft the perfect response.

• Situation: The Situation should answer the “When,” “Why,” and “Where” of the response. When you’re asked a behavioral question, start off with the Situation before moving on to the other elements.
• Task: The Task should throw light on what your particular role in the situation was. Highlight what your key responsibilities were and what was expected of you.
• Action: The Action part should address what steps you took towards meeting the requirements of the task.
• Result: The Result part should essentially answer the outcome of the task. This part should also talk about challenges encountered along the way and the actions taken to tackle them.

Behavioral Interview Questions Based on Amazon’s Leadership Principles

Amazon’s behavioral interview will have questions that pertain to one or more leadership principles. While answering these questions, make references to specific principles and associate them with your answers. That way, recruiters will know that you’ve read and understood these crucial principles and are willing to apply them at your workplace.

Here’s a list of 35 behavioral interview questions that you can use to practice for the interview:

• Tell us about a time when you overcame a rather difficult challenge pertaining to a past project.
• Tell us about a time when you had to halt a project halfway through as it wasn’t headed in the right direction.
• Tell us about a time when you had to make sacrifices in your personal life to complete an arduous project.
• Tell us about an instance when you had to make a tough decision pertaining to a project when you were under pressure.
• Tell us about a time when you had to take a risk in a project.

• Tell us about a time when you were asked to compromise moral values for the sake of a project.
• Tell us about a difficult relationship you had with a superior. How did you overcome it and build trust?
• Tell us about a time when you had a conflict at your workplace with a coworker.
• Tell us about a time when you had to deviate from the norm to complete a project.
• Tell us about a time when you imparted learnings from a challenging project to your team members.
• How would you employ a certain leadership principle at work?
• Tell us about a time when you had to persuade your manager to change the course of action based on credible insights.
• Tell us about a time when a problem had multiple solutions. How did you go about picking the right solution?
• What are your thoughts on maintaining the ideal work-life balance?
• Tell us about a time when you had to acquire a new skill, dislodging you from your zone of comfort.
• Tell us about a time when you had to take the lead in a project.
• Have you been criticized by a superior in the past? How did you handle it?
• Tell us about a time when your creativity helped a project take an improved turn.
• Tell us about your ideas to motivate your team.
• Which leadership principle do you resonate with the most?
• Tell us about a time when a coworker was hesitant to take help. How did you deal with it?
• Tell us about a time when you had to make a big decision with little data or information?
• Tell us about a time when you faced criticism for your role in an important project. How did you handle it?
• Tell us about a time when your role in a project resulted in the client being completely satisfied.
• Have you ever missed a deadline for a project? How did it impact the relationship with the client, and how did you handle it?
• Tell us about when you had to take the lead on a project and impart key learnings to your team members.
• Tell us about a time when you faced a fairly difficult problem but came up with a simple solution.
• Have you had to ask for help with a difficult project? Tell us how you went about the situation?
• Tell us about a time when your actions impacted customer satisfaction.
• What behavioral characteristics, according to you, will help you succeed at Amazon?
• Tell us about a time when you made short-term compromises or sacrifices for the benefit of concrete long-term results?
• How do you motivate members of your team as a manager?
• Tell us about a time when a project had multiple solutions and how you adopted the most optimal one?
• Tell us about a time when you had to make a tough decision without consulting anybody? How did you go about it?
• Has your manager/superior asked you to do something that you disagree with in the past? How did you handle that?

Examples of Amazon Leadership Principles Questions

Here are some examples of Leadership Principles questions you can expect:

#1 Questions on “Customer Obsession”:

• Who was your most difficult customer?
• Tell me about a time when you didn’t meet customer expectations. What happened, and how did you deal with the situation?
• How do you go about prioritizing customer needs when you are dealing with a large number of customers?

#2 Questions on “Ownership”:

• Tell me about a time when you took on a task that was beyond your job responsibilities.
• Tell me about a time when you had to work on a task with unclear responsibilities.
• Tell me about a time when you showed an initiative to work on a challenging project.

#3 Questions on “Invent and Simplify”:

• Describe a time when you found a simple solution to a complex problem.
• Tell me about a time when you invented something.
• Tell me about a time when you tried to simplify a process but failed. What would you have done differently?

#4 Questions on “Are Right, a Lot”:

• Tell me about a time when you effectively used your judgment to solve a problem.
• Tell me about a time when you had to work with insufficient information or incomplete data.
• Tell me about a time when you were wrong.

#5 Questions on “Learn and Be Curious”:

• Tell me about an important lesson you learned over the past year.
• Tell me about a situation or experience you went through that changed your way of thinking.
• Tell me about a time when you made a smarter decision with the help of your curiosity.

#6 Questions on “Hire and Develop the Best”:

• Tell me about a time when you mentored someone.
• Tell me about a time when you made a bad hire. When did you figure it out, and what did you do?
• What qualities do you look for in potential candidates when making hiring decisions?

#7 Questions on “Insist on the Highest Standards”:

• Tell me about a time when you were dissatisfied with the quality of a project at work. What did you do to improve it?
• Tell me about a time when you motivated others to go above and beyond.
• Describe a situation when you couldn’t meet your standards and expectations on a task.

#8 Questions on “Think Big”:

• Tell me about your most significant professional achievement.
• Tell me about a time when you had to make a bold and challenging decision.
• Tell me about a time when your vision led to a great impact.

#9 Questions on “Bias for Action”:

• Provide an example of when you took a calculated risk.
• Describe a situation when you took the initiative to correct a problem or a mistake rather than waiting for someone else to do it.
• Tell me about a time when you required some information from somebody else, but they weren’t responsive. What did you do?

#10 Questions on “Frugality”:

• Describe a time when you had to rely on yourself to complete a task.
• Tell me about a time when you had to be frugal.
• Tell me about a time when you had to rely on yourself to complete a project.

#11 Questions on “Earn Trust”:

• Describe a time when you had to speak up in a difficult or uncomfortable environment.
• What would you do to gain the trust of your team?
• Tell me about a time when you had to tell a harsh truth to someone.

#12 Questions on “Dive Deep”:

• Tell me about the most complicated problem you’ve had to deal with.
• Give me an example of when you utilized in-depth data to develop a solution.
• Tell me about something that you have learned in your role.

#13 Questions on “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit”:

• Describe a time when you disagreed with the approach of a team member. What did you do?
• Give me an example of something you believe in that nobody else does.
• Tell me about an unpopular decision of yours.

#14 Questions on “Deliver Results”:

• Describe the most challenging situation in your life and how you handled it.
• Give an example of a time when you had to handle a variety of assignments. What was the outcome?
• Tell me about a time when your team gave up on something, but you pushed them to deliver results.

FAQ

How do you answer have backbone disagree and commit?

1. Showing Responsibility: ( You own the final decision and you are responsible, even if the final decision is not what you wanted).
2. Showing Respect: (Show respect for your ideas first, and then wholly respect the chosen decision).

Does backbone disagree and commit feedback?

How do you answer the failure question in Amazon interview?

1. Always follow the STAR format. …
2. Offer a genuine response. …
3. Focus on relationships, mitigations and learnings.

Why does Amazon use behavior based interview questions?