Any manager you hire should role-play a few 1-1s as part of the interview process. One of the best ways to do this is by asking the people who would report to the new manager to interview her by asking her to help with problems they have right now, or have had in the recent past. Similar to a senior engineer being asked how he might approach debugging an issue that you just resolved, a good manager — even without a full understanding of the people or projects involved — should have good instincts for questions to ask and suggested next steps that might improve matters.
