Truly Good leadership is often undervalued and poor leadership overvalued.
When asked about your leadership experience, it may be helpful to speak of times you have taken a leadership role on a project or gave a co-worker needed direction. I have found a good response for why I wasn't in a management position at a previous job to be "I prefer to get my hands dirty, so to speak, and I found that the departmental structure at didn't afford management the opportunity to be a part of projects in a way that my knowledge and expertise are most valuable. While I do possess leadership skills, and co-workers often come to me for advice and direction, I find that my skills as a are far more valuable to the "
Basically you are telling them in HR speak that you are too good at your job to be wasting your time and the company's money to be doing anything else. While this has worked for me, ymmv.
