Performance Management & Accountability Flashcards

A team leader realizes mid-year that a team member's goals are no longer relevant due to a major organizational change. The BEST action is to:

Answer: Revise the goals collaboratively to reflect the new organizational priorities

Goals should be living documents that are revised when circumstances change significantly to remain meaningful and fair.

The 'halo effect' in performance evaluation refers to:

Answer: Allowing one positive trait or achievement to positively bias overall evaluation

The halo effect is a cognitive bias where excellence in one area leads evaluators to rate all other performance dimensions more favorably.

Which element is ESSENTIAL for a performance standard to be fair and enforceable?

Answer: It must be communicated clearly to the employee before evaluation

Employees cannot be fairly held accountable to standards they were not clearly informed of before their performance period began.

An employee disagrees strongly with their performance rating. The team leader should FIRST:

Answer: Listen to the employee's perspective and acknowledge their viewpoint

Active listening validates the employee's experience and may reveal important information or misunderstandings that should be addressed.

In a '360-degree feedback' process, feedback is collected from:

Answer: The employee, peers, direct reports, and supervisor

360-degree feedback gathers input from multiple relationship directions to create a comprehensive picture of an employee's performance.

Which of the following BEST describes 'forced ranking' as a performance management method?

Answer: Employees are distributed across predetermined performance categories, often a bell curve

Forced ranking requires placing employees into fixed performance distribution categories, which can create competition but also morale challenges.

A team leader is preparing for an annual performance review cycle. Which preparatory step is MOST important?

Answer: Gathering documentation of performance throughout the entire year

A thorough review requires evidence collected across the full review period, not just recent or memorable events.