Tell me about a call you made while leading people that you'd take back. What did it cost the team?

Leadership mistakes have a blast radius — other people absorbed the cost of this one, which makes the honest version harder to tell than an individual failure. Whether the candidate names that cost plainly, and what they run differently now, separates reflection from a rehearsed humble-brag.

• Who bore the consequences, and what did that look like for them?
• When did you realize, and what did you say to the team?
• What do you run differently today because of it?

A decision with real stakes owned in the first person, its cost to others stated without flinching, some repair attempted at the time, and a specific changed practice today — not just "I learned to listen more".

A mistake chosen for being flattering, the cost to others glossed over, blame drifting to circumstances or the team by the end of the story, or a lesson that stays abstract.