Exam 12: Leadership

Maura Ruiz has been working in the e-learning industry for over eight years. She is aware of the fact that in this industry, once an employee has learned his job, the work becomes fairly automatic and competence can be achieved rapidly. She has been noticing how in her team, this competence has come along with a lot of complacency; the employees, though able, are unwilling to work hard. According to the situational leadership theory, to rectify this situation, Maura would benefit the most if she uses the ________ style of leadership.

Which of the following is true with regard to online leadership?

According to the attribution theory of leadership, leadership is characterized by ________.

A transactional leader is likely to ________.

Transformational leadership has a greater impact on the bottom line in smaller, privately held firms than in more complex organizations.

Lionel Tucker has been asked to lead a virtual team on a project with a tight time schedule. While allocating the project to him, his manager impressed upon him the need to complete this project successfully and in time so that this client gains enough confidence to use their services in the future. Lionel and his team communicate via e-mail as the team members are located at geographically dispersed locations. They have not had even one face-to-face meeting as yet. In this case, Lionel must have an ability to ________ in addition to all the other desirable abilities of a leader to lead the team successfully.

The only key characteristic we use to determine the trustworthiness of a leader is his/her ability.

Which theory of leadership proposes that followers attribute heroic or extraordinary leadership abilities when they observe certain behaviors?

Leslie is a middle-level production manager at the California branch of ALT Corp. ALT Corp. is an automobile manufacturing company that specializes in the manufacture of heavy motor vehicles. Leslie's job is to supervise his assembly line employees. Leslie has worked in this position for over four years and he strongly believes that a supportive leadership style is most suitable in his context. Which of the following, if true, would weaken Leslie's approach to leadership in this case?

Emotional intelligence (EI) is critical to effective leadership because one of its core components is ________ which reflects the consideration that leaders must be able to express.

Trait theories of leadership most accurately predict the emergence and appearance of leadership.

According to the situational leadership theory, if followers are unable and unwilling to do a task, then a leader needs to ________.

Tim Wrench was leading the client services division of AmWeb for seven years when he was asked to move to another region where the company was setting up its office. Before moving, Tim was asked to help in finding a successor for him from his team. Tim's most obvious choice was Judy Judge and the management accepted his choice as Judy was a popular person across the company. Judy was known for her vivacious nature, she was often seen speaking to employees from various divisions, and was always excited to take up a new opportunity. Once she became a leader, she continued to give employees freedom and flexibility even if it resulted in deficiencies on the work front like missed deadlines or low quality. Judy's initial weeks as a leader were full of confusion among her team members, but many felt that the situation would come under control. When things did not improve in the next two months and many complaints poured in from clients, the management realized that Judy was not the best candidate to lead the team. Which of the following, if true, would best explain this outcome?

According to the Fiedler contingency model, high managerial control is characterized by ________.

Charismatic leaders are not always authentic leaders. Discuss.

Which of the following is true with regard to mentorship?

Describe the relationship between trust and leadership.

Trait theories most accurately predict ________.

Contingency theories focus on the ________ that impact leadership success.

Dora Lee has just completed and scored the LPC questionnaire given to her during an evaluation exercise. She is surprised when she finds out that she described her least preferred co-worker in relatively positive terms because she recalls being particularly annoyed by this difficult co-worker several times in the past. Based on your understanding of Fiedler's model, you explain to Dora that her LPC score makes sense within the model because ________.