Deck 11: Strategic Leadership: Creating a Learning Organization and an Ethical Organization

Question 1

Leaders must draw on a range of personal skills as well as organizational mechanisms to move their organizations forward in the face of barriers to change.

Answer 1

True
Explanation: Leaders must draw on a range of personal skills as well as organizational mechanisms to move their organizations forward in the face of such barriers to change. One of the most important tools a leader has for overcoming barriers to change is their personal and organizational power.

Question 2

The tendency of many individuals to throw good money at bad decisions despite negative performance feedback is referred to as escalation.

Answer 2

True
Explanation: Many people have vested interests in the status quo. People tend to be risk averse and resistant to change. There is a broad stream of research on escalation, wherein certain individuals continue to throw good money at bad decisions despite negative performance feedback.

Question 3

Systemic barriers to change refer to elements of organization design, structure, and reporting relationships that impede the flow of information.

Answer 3

True
Explanation: Organizations at all levels are prone to inertia and are slow to learn, adapt, and change because there are systemic barriers. The design of organization structure, information processing, reporting relationships, and so forth impede the proper flow and evaluation of information.

Question 4

Political barriers to change can be overcome by promoting collaboration throughout the organization, as seen in the case study on Natura Cosmeticos of Brazil, in which CEO Carlucci implemented a comprehensive engagement process across the organization.

Question 5

Leadership is the process of transforming organizations from what they are to what the leader would have them become. This implies that there will be a lot of satisfaction with the status quo.

Question 6

Designing the organization is the leadership activity that involves building structures, teams, systems, and processes that facilitate the implementation of leader vision.

Question 7

Three key interdependent strategic leadership activities are: designing the organization, determining its direction, and nurturing a culture dedicated to excellence and ethical behavior.

Question 8

Leaders are not expected to accept personal responsibility for ethical behavior in an organization, because ethics is a matter of individual choice.

Question 9

Coercive power is the power exercised by use of fear of punishment for errors of either omission or commission by employees.

Question 10

According to the Gresham law of planning, operational decisions do not drive out the time necessary for strategic thinking and reflection.

Question 11

Leaders may find it difficult to implement their vision and strategies because they have inadequate or inappropriate budgeting and control systems.

Question 12

Referent power refers to manager identification with his or her employees.

Question 13

A strategic vision provides a clear future direction for the firm, a framework for its mission and goals, and enhanced employee communication, participation, and commitment.

Question 14

Leaders play an important role in sustaining organization culture, but they are powerless to change it.

Question 15

Hypercompetition suggests that sustainable competitive advantages are no longer possible because all of the dimensions of competition are compressed in time and heightened in complexity.

Question 16

Setting a direction is the leadership activity that involves developing a strategic vision of what the organization could become.

Question 17

Behavioral barriers to change occur because of conflicts between departments, conflicts arising from power relationships, and refusal to share information.

Question 18

The two broad bases of leader power are organizational and hierarchical.

Question 19

When Peter Loscher took over as CEO at Siemens in 2007, he lacked internal connections. He used formal bases of power to bring about organizational change and increase a customer orientation.

Question 20

In order for a firm to become highly ethical, it needs corporate credos and codes of conduct.

Question 21

Empathy, one of the components of emotional intelligence (EI), refers to personal proficiency in managing relationships and building networks.

Question 22

Establishing a culture of dissent can be an effective means of questioning the status quo.

Question 23

Inspiring and motivating people with a mission or purpose is a necessary and sufficient condition for developing a learning organization.

Question 24

Organizational learning works best when an organization leader gathers information and teaches it to employees who are like their students.

Question 25

Successful leaders are driven by a deeply embedded desire to achieve for the sake of achievement.

Question 26

Internal benchmarking is discouraged in most organizations, because it creates competition and internal rivalries that are counterproductive.

Question 27

Competitive benchmarking is a method of seeking the best examples of practices or processes that have essentially the same function regardless of industry.

Question 28

Socially skilled people tend to have a wide circle of acquaintances as well as a knack for finding common ground and building support. This means that they are less likely to be effective in leading change or in having expertise in building and leading teams.

Question 29

Although many organizations encourage creativity and risk taking, few successful companies tolerate failure.

Question 30

People with strong self-awareness are neither overly critical nor unrealistically optimistic.

Question 31

A key function of the leaders in a learning organization is to generate an organization-wide commitment to the status quo.

Question 32

Emotional intelligence (EI) is one of the components of a high intelligence quotient (IQ).

Question 33

To successfully empower employees to achieve organizational goals, leaders must perform the tasks of resource allocation and power brokering.

Question 34

Self-regulated people are unable to create an environment of trust and fairness, where political behavior and infighting are sharply reduced and productivity tends to be high.

Question 35

Successful learning organizations have a proactive, creative approach to the unknown.

Question 36

The three broad sets of capabilities into which leadership traits can be organized include technical skills, cognitive abilities, and intellectual abilities.

Question 37

Emotional intelligence (EI) is generally a better predictor of life success than intelligence quotient (IQ).

Question 38

In order to gather information from informal sources, successful executives must be good listeners.

Question 39

Our emotions are driven by biological impulses which we cannot eliminate, but we can make efforts to manage them.

Question 40

People with strong self-awareness are overly critical and unrealistically optimistic and are well suited to run organizations, because they will make good judgment calls.

Question 41

In integrity-based ethics programs, organizational ethics is seen as the responsibility of the employees.

Question 42

Research supports that there are many potential benefits of an ethical organization, including that there is a strong and consistent relationship between ethical performance and measures of financial performance.

Question 43

Ethical crises are bad for organization reputation, but they rarely have any financial consequences.

Question 44

There can be a high-integrity organization, without high-integrity individuals.

Question 45

Organizational ethics is the responsibility of top management only.

Question 46

An ethical organization is characterized by its concept of ethical values and integrity that is used to unify the organization across different functions, lines of business, and employee groups.

Question 47

In the integrity-based approach to ethics management, social actors are guided by a combination of self-interest, ideals, values, and social expectations.

Question 48

There is little difference between the compliance-based and integrity-based ethics program.

Question 49

Methods used for ethics management in a compliance-based approach include education, reduced discretion, auditing and controls, and penalties.

Question 50

Ethics is a question of personal scruples, a confidential matter between employees and their consciences and therefore for a leader it is acceptable to assume the company should not bear any responsibility for individual misdeeds.

Question 51

A compliance-based approach to ethics management combines a concern for law with an emphasis on managerial responsibility for ethical behavior.

Question 52

Ethics has everything to do with leadership. The character flaw of a lone actor always completely explains corporate misconduct.

Question 53

In a compliance-based approach to ethics management, the objective is to enable responsible conduct.

Question 54

The ethical orientation of a leader greatly affects the ethical orientation of the organization.

Question 55

According to Strategy Spotlight 11.6, the example of Alliant Energy of Iowa developed a successful green-energy program called Second Nature that demonstrates how companies can capitalize on consumer desire to be socially responsible.

Question 56

In an integrity-based approach to ethics management, ethos is concerned with conformity with externally imposed standards.

Question 57

There are many advantages of an ethical organization, but it generally has little to do with employee commitment and motivation to excel.

Question 58

In the integrity-based approach to ethics management, behavioral assumptions include that social beings are guided by material self-interest, values, ideals, and peers.

Question 59

Greenwashing is a type of fraud in which companies make unsubstantiated claims about how environmentally friendly their products or services really are.

Question 60

Leaders who fail to institute proper systems and controls that facilitate ethical conduct share responsibility with those who conceive, execute, and knowingly benefit from corporate misdeeds.

Question 61

Which of the following is an important characteristic of a leader?

A)satisfied with the status quo
B)goal-oriented
C)reactive
D)focused on past performance

Question 62

Corporate codes of conduct provide norms and expectations to impede employees from committing unethical acts.

Question 63

The CEO scraps the company commission-based reward system, because it rewards employees for inappropriate behavior. This is an example of

A)setting a direction.
B)designing the organization.
C)unethical behavior.
D)failure to maintain the status quo.

Question 64

If leaders do not believe in the ethical standards that they are trying to inspire, they will not be effective as good role models.

Question 65

The example of Dennis Bakke, CEO of AES, in which he and his team took responsibility for employees who lied to the EPA about water quality at the plant, suggests that for an ethical organization, it is not necessary to do more than just take strong punitive action against those who act contrary to the company-established expected behavior.

Question 66

Policies and procedures guide employee behavior, but are effective only if they are reinforced with specific corporation action such as enforcement and monitoring.

Question 67

According to Michael Williams, director of Entrepreneurship Activities and the Business and Entrepreneurship Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, effective leaders must design an organization to achieve the direction they have laid out for the business. Which of the following is not a key element in that design?

A)creating core values that are simple, clear, direct
B)creating a transparent environment
C)creating an environment of accountability
D)creating core values that matter only to shareholders

Question 68

A strategic vision provides many benefits. Which of the following is not one of those benefits?

A)a clear future direction
B)a framework for their organization mission and goals
C)enhanced employee communication and commitment
D)diminished employee participation

Question 69

According to Michael Williams, director of Entrepreneurship Activities and the Business and Entrepreneurship Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, effective leaders ____________ themselves with exceptional people and are trusted and fantastic ____________.

A)surround; communicators
B)enable; entertainers
C)carry; motivators
D)excite; enablers

Question 70

Codes of conduct help employees from diverse backgrounds to work more effectively across cultural backgrounds.

Question 71

Many of the scandals on Wall Street might have been eliminated if corporate codes of conduct had outlined more clearly the consequences of unethical behavior.

Question 72

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 does not provide legal protection to employee whistleblowers of publicly traded companies.

Question 73

Poor organizational design by leaders can result in all of the following except

A)insufficient mechanisms that integrate and coordinate activities across the firm.
B)inadequate accountability among managers and employees.
C)inappropriate budgeting and control systems.
D)teams, systems, and organizational processes that facilitate implementation.

Question 74

Codes of conduct have no role in attracting individuals who might want to work for a business that embraces high standards.

Question 75

Effective leadership is like a three-legged stool. Which of the following is not represented by one of the stool legs?

A)dedication to maintaining the status quo
B)nurturing a culture dedicated to excellence and ethical behavior
C)determining a direction
D)designing the organization

Question 76

Alan Mulally took over Ford Motor Company in 2006 at a time when it was struggling, losing money, and market share. Under his leadership, the firm returned to high profitability. Which of the following is not one of the interdependent activities of leadership that he used to accomplish this task?

A)He set a direction using strategic analysis and strategy formulation.
B)He designed the organization to facilitate the implementation of his vision and strategies.
C)He nurtured a culture dedicated to profits at any cost.
D)He nurtured a culture focused on core competencies and high ethical standards.

Question 77

Which of the following statements about leadership is false?

A)Leadership is focused on the creation and implementation of a creative vision.
B)Leadership is the process of transforming organizations from what they are to what the leader would have them become.
C)Leaders support the status quo and seek control mechanisms to maintain it.
D)Effective implementation of strategy is essential for successful leadership.

Question 78

Leaders play a key role in developing and sustaining organization

A)status quo.
B)culture.
C)reporting relationships.
D)rules and regulations.

Question 79

Inappropriate reward systems seldom cause individuals at all levels throughout an organization to commit unethical acts, since people are either unethical or ethical in their behavior.

Question 80

An effective way to instill ethical behavior in an organization is to distribute rewards strictly on the basis of outcomes.