Preparing for interviews is super tough because you have not idea what they'll ask, what they're looking for, or what format they'll use. And having prepared interview answers won't always help your case (my boss hates when someone is too polished...he thinks they have something to hide).
If you run into a situation where you don't have a prepared answer and can't think of an actual situation to fit the question, try answering a different way. "I can honestly say that I've never had a conflict with my supervisor. I have been extraordinarily lucky that my past few supervisors were really great at managing their departments and avoiding conflict. When a situation arose that looked like it was headed toward conflict, she tackled it head-on through communication. She had a great connection with everyone in our department and I'm lucky to have learned a lot from her and by watching her. I hope to be able to manage like that someday."
Also, it can help to focus on a specific significant project and refer back to it often. Pick your greatest achievement or the project that you learned the most from or contributed the most to. Reference it when answering these types of questions. "One of the things that I learned when working on <project> was how to work within a diverse team. As we had such a tight deadline/budget/etc there was definitely some conflict. I learned that respect is one of the most important skills that you can bring to a team. I learned to listen. And I can honestly say that by listening to and respecting each of my team members, I never had a conflict that escalated to a point of needing intervention or that caused a rift in the team or loss of productivity. I carry those two skills with me always now."
Also, it helps in an interview to identify where you fall within a team situation. If you're a natural leader you want to mention that and give examples, and then your frame of reference will be from that angle. "As someone who likes to take the lead on projects, I've seen my share of conflict. But I've learned that one some of the biggest catalysts to conflict are lack of communication, uncertainty within the group, and conflicting personalities. So I strive to be a good communicator, seek out frequent feedback from my team on both their progress and their process, and I try to identify team members that work well together and match up teams within a team to reduce the potential for conflict." Or "as someone who likes to be a contributor within a team environment, I've witnessed conflict among my coworkers. Often it appears to arise from lack of communication, uncertainty within the group, and conflicting personalities. As such, I work hard to ensure that I communicate well, seek feedback from my coworkers and team lead often, and I tend to pair up with other strong contributors and try to find a mentor in the group, which I find has helped me to fit in well and have a great balance of contributing and learning."
If they want something specific, remember that what they care about is seeing if you will complain about your coworkers/boss (your attitude) and how you solved the problem. So you can pick something as simple as "part of my last job was to do <the thing>. While the thing was very simple, the last person doing the thing didn't seem to want to let go of that task. It caused some conflict as I was trying to do my job and we were either replicating efforts or wasting time by stumbling over each other in trying to split up the steps. I could have gone to my supervisor, but I thought it was important to talk to my coworker about it. I started by thanking her for taking the time to train me and I asked her if she thought that the reason she needed to do the thing was because I couldn't do it well enough. She admitted that she'd been doing the thing for so long that it was hard for her to let go of. I asked if she had a solution for us to either better do the thing together or transition it to me in a way she was more comfortable with. She actually said that I was doing a great job with the thing and that it was time for her to let it go. And after that we had no problems. I'm really going to miss working with and learning from her."
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think your suggestion for supervisor conflict and group conflict are absolutely terrific! Actually the entire post is fantastic. Although I won't memorize and use these exact answers (not that I even could lol, my memory is shot) they are great guides -which is what I need- for me to input my own experiences. I don't even need any other responses, this post is just perfect, pure gold 
