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

Question 1

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.

Answer 1

False
Explanation: As an outsider, Mr. Loscher found it challenging to establish himself as a strong leader inside the bureaucratic Siemens organization. Naturally, in the early stage of his tenure, he lacked internal connections and the bases of power associated with inside knowledge of people and processes. Absent a more formal power base, he turned to more informal means to accomplish his mandate of organizational change and increasing customer orientation.

Question 2

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

Answer 2

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 3

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

Answer 3

False
Explanation: Behavioral barriers cause managers to look at issues from a biased or limited perspective due to their education, training, work experiences, and so forth. Political barriers refer to conflicts arising from power relationships.

Question 4

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

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

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 7

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

Question 8

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

Question 9

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

Question 10

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

Question 11

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

Question 12

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.

Question 13

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

Question 14

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

Question 15

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

Question 16

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

Question 17

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

Question 18

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

Question 19

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 20

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 21

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

Question 22

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

Question 23

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 24

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

Question 25

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

Question 26

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

Question 27

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

Question 28

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

Question 29

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 30

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

Question 31

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

Question 32

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

Question 33

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

Question 34

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

Question 35

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

Question 36

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

Question 37

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

Question 38

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

Question 39

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 40

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

Question 41

Organizational ethics is the responsibility of top management only.

Question 42

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

Question 43

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 44

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

Question 45

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 46

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

Question 47

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

Question 48

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

Question 49

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 50

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

Question 51

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

Question 52

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

Question 53

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 54

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

Question 55

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

Question 56

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

Question 57

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

Question 58

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 59

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 60

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

Question 61

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

Question 62

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 63

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 64

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

Question 65

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 66

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 67

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 68

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 69

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 70

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 71

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

Question 72

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 73

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

Question 74

Leaders play a key role in developing and sustaining organization

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

Question 75

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 76

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

Question 77

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

Question 78

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 79

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 80

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