How I Designed My Interviews: Method for a Meaningful Talk

When I began this interview series on leadership and workplace culture, I knew I didn’t just want casual chats. I wanted conversations with structure, depth, and comparability. My goal was to uncover what truly defines good leadership and joyful teamwork, by looking at it through the eyes of people who know what they’re talking about.

To do this, I developed a methodology that guided every interview. It combined consistency with curiosity, structure with flexibility.

A Core Framework of Interview Questions

At the heart of my approach was a fixed set of questions that I asked every single interview partner. These questions touched on leadership, organizational culture, well-being at work, and the role of agile values.

Why a fixed framework? Because it allows for direct comparability. When you ask seven leaders the same question, you don’t just get seven different answers. You get patterns. You see overlaps. You notice where everyone agrees, and where perspectives diverge.

This comparative lens is what turns individual conversations into broader insights.

Tailored Questions for Unique Expertise

At the same time, I didn’t want to lose the richness of each person’s unique background. So, alongside the core framework, I always prepared a set of individual questions, designed specifically for the expertise of that guest.

For example: if someone was deeply experienced in diversity and inclusion, I asked how leadership intersects with equity. If another was focused on change management, I explored how leaders can help people navigate uncertainty.

This balance between consistency and customization is what made the conversations both comparable and deeply personal.

Choosing the Right Voices

Equally important was the selection of interview partners. I chose people I personally find inspiring, and who share a similar mindset to my own: they believe in collaboration, in continuous growth, and in the simple but powerful idea that work should also be joyful.

These weren’t random leaders plucked from a list. They were voices I genuinely wanted to learn from. People with impressive careers in both large corporations and as successful entrepreneurs. That mix was deliberate: I wanted perspectives shaped by different environments, but grounded in real, lived experience.

Shared Mindsets, Different Journeys

What connected all my guests was mindset. Every one of them believes in:

• The value of collaboration over competition

• The importance of joy at work (because we spend so much of our lives there)

• The necessity of personal and professional growth

  
  

And yet, their journeys couldn’t be more diverse. Some climbed the corporate ladder. Others built independent careers. Some reinvented themselves along the way. This diversity of backgrounds ensured that the insights weren’t theoretical. They were battle-tested through experience.

What I Learned from This Approach

Looking back, the methodology gave me exactly what I had hoped for.

• The core questions revealed recurring challenges and timeless truths about leadership.

• The tailored questions uncovered hidden gems of expertise I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

• The careful guest selection made every conversation inspiring in its own right, while collectively building a powerful mosaic of leadership insights.

  
  

Most importantly, it reinforced a belief I’ve carried for years: leadership is less about titles, and more about mindset, trust, and culture.

What’s Next

This series is just the beginning. The insights I gathered will flow into blogs, podcasts, and LinkedIn discussions. My hope is that they don’t just stay as “interesting interviews,” but that they spark reflection and maybe even change how we think about leadership today.

Because in a world of rapid transformation, leadership isn’t optional. It’s the difference between workplaces that drain people and those that allow them to thrive.