COA Leadership & Strategic Planning 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which leadership style is MOST effective when team members are highly skilled but lack motivation?
- Directive
- Coaching
- Delegating
- Participating (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Participating
Participating style works best when employees have high competence but low commitment, as it focuses on boosting motivation through shared decision-making.
Question 2: A SWOT analysis is primarily used during which phase of strategic planning?
- Implementation
- Evaluation
- Environmental scanning (Correct answer)
- Budgeting
Correct answer: Environmental scanning
SWOT analysis is a key tool in the environmental scanning phase, assessing internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats.
Question 3: Which of the following BEST describes a mission statement?
- A long-term financial projection
- A statement of the organization's core purpose and reason for existence (Correct answer)
- A list of annual performance targets
- A plan for entering new markets
Correct answer: A statement of the organization's core purpose and reason for existence
A mission statement articulates the organization's fundamental purpose — what it does, for whom, and why it exists.
Question 4: An administrative professional who anticipates problems before they occur is demonstrating which leadership quality?
- Reactivity
- Proactivity (Correct answer)
- Delegation
- Autocracy
Correct answer: Proactivity
Proactivity means taking initiative to identify and address issues before they escalate rather than waiting for problems to arise.
Question 5: In strategic planning, a 'gap analysis' compares:
- Employee salaries to industry benchmarks
- Current performance to desired future performance (Correct answer)
- Competitor pricing to internal pricing
- Budget allocations to actual spending
Correct answer: Current performance to desired future performance
A gap analysis identifies the difference between where an organization is now and where it wants to be, guiding strategy development.
Question 6: Which of the following is an example of an external threat in a SWOT analysis for an office administration department?
- High staff turnover
- Outdated filing systems
- New privacy regulations requiring process changes (Correct answer)
- Low employee morale
Correct answer: New privacy regulations requiring process changes
External threats originate outside the organization; new regulations are an outside factor that can negatively impact operations.
Question 7: When setting organizational goals, the acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and:
- Realistic
- Reasonable
- Time-bound (Correct answer)
- Repeatable
Correct answer: Time-bound
The 'T' in SMART goals stands for Time-bound, meaning goals must have a defined deadline or timeframe.
COA Leadership & Strategic Planning 2
Which leadership style is MOST effective when team members are highly skilled but lack motivation?