Tell me about a time you motivated your team during a challenging situation.

When COVID first hit, we had to rapidly transition our in-person tech team to fully remote work. Morale was low on my team of 10 engineers. It was a stressful time in their personal lives and connecting with teammates suddenly became difficult.

I knew I needed to actively motivate them through this transition. First, I started scheduling virtual coffee chats to just talk about anything besides work. This personal facetime helped strengthen our relationships. I also sent encouraging text messages when engineers achieved milestones.

Most importantly, I emphasized that the work we were doing was making an even bigger difference given the pandemic. I shared stories of how our products were helping customers. By the next month, team morale bounced back up and we actually achieved a major release ahead of schedule. Connecting work to meaning was key to motivating the team through uncertainty.