Tell me about a time you had to evaluate whether a complaint or concern was valid or could have been resolved earlier. How did you go about making that judgment?

Situation

During my final year in university, I was a team lead for a marketing project. One team member complained that her workload was unfairly heavy and that I wasn't distributing tasks evenly.

Task

I needed to assess if her complaint was valid and if the distribution was indeed unbalanced, while keeping the project on track without creating team conflict.

Action

I first reviewed the task assignment sheet and compared the estimated hours and complexity of each member's tasks. I then had one-on-one chats with each member to understand their actual time spent and any challenges. I also looked at our project timeline to see if there were opportunities to adjust deadlines. After gathering data, I found that her workload was slightly heavier because a deliverable had been added later without rebalancing. I acknowledged her concern was valid, reallocated one smaller task to another volunteer member, and set up a brief weekly check-in to catch imbalances early.

Result

She became more engaged, the project was submitted on time with high quality, and the team dynamic improved because members felt heard.