CTL Strategic Team Development 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A team leader inherits a demotivated team that previously had poor leadership. Which action should be prioritized in the first 90 days?
- Immediately restructure roles to signal a new direction
- Build trust through consistent small commitments and active listening before making major changes (Correct answer)
- Replace underperformers to raise the team's performance bar quickly
- Launch a new strategic initiative to re-energize the group
Correct answer: Build trust through consistent small commitments and active listening before making major changes
Trust rebuilding through consistent follow-through and genuine listening is the essential foundation before any structural or strategic changes will gain traction.
Question 2: Which model provides a framework for diagnosing what type of leadership style a team member requires based on their task-specific development level?
- Transformational Leadership Model
- Situational Leadership Model (Hersey & Blanchard) (Correct answer)
- Servant Leadership Framework
- Path-Goal Theory
Correct answer: Situational Leadership Model (Hersey & Blanchard)
The Situational Leadership Model prescribes directive versus supportive behavior based on a follower's competence and commitment level for a specific task.
Question 3: When setting team goals strategically, which framework ensures goals are both ambitious and achievable?
- SWOT analysis applied at the team level
- OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) with aspirational targets and measurable outcomes (Correct answer)
- Balanced Scorecard with four equal-weighted quadrants
- MBO (Management by Objectives) set entirely by senior leadership
Correct answer: OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) with aspirational targets and measurable outcomes
OKRs pair inspiring objectives with concrete measurable results, balancing ambition with accountability and aligning team effort to strategic priorities.
Question 4: A team leader observes that team performance spikes when a deadline is near but drops significantly during planning phases. This pattern most likely indicates:
- The team has insufficient resources for planning activities
- The team is extrinsically motivated by urgency rather than intrinsically driven by purpose (Correct answer)
- The leader is providing too much autonomy during planning
- Team members are overqualified for the tasks assigned
Correct answer: The team is extrinsically motivated by urgency rather than intrinsically driven by purpose
Performance that is driven primarily by deadline pressure signals reliance on extrinsic urgency rather than sustained intrinsic motivation connected to purpose.
Question 5: Which of the following is a key principle of 'team charter' development in strategic team building?
- The charter should be drafted by the leader and presented to the team for acceptance
- The charter should be co-created by all members to ensure shared ownership and commitment (Correct answer)
- The charter should focus exclusively on deliverables and timelines
- The charter should be kept confidential to avoid external interference
Correct answer: The charter should be co-created by all members to ensure shared ownership and commitment
Co-creation of the team charter generates genuine buy-in, as members who shape the agreements are more committed to honoring them.
Question 6: A high-performing team is at risk of 'groupthink.' Which practice best mitigates this risk?
- Reduce the frequency of team meetings to lower conformity pressure
- Assign a 'devil's advocate' role to formally challenge consensus positions (Correct answer)
- Eliminate anonymous feedback channels to promote transparency
- Increase group size to dilute dominant personalities
Correct answer: Assign a 'devil's advocate' role to formally challenge consensus positions
A designated devil's advocate creates a structured mechanism for surfacing dissenting views, counteracting the conformity pressure that produces groupthink.
Question 7: In team development, 'double-loop learning' (Argyris) differs from single-loop learning in that it:
- Requires two separate review sessions per project cycle
- Questions and revises the underlying assumptions and values driving behavior (Correct answer)
- Focuses on correcting specific errors in task execution
- Involves both the team and external stakeholders in the feedback process
Correct answer: Questions and revises the underlying assumptions and values driving behavior
Double-loop learning goes beyond fixing errors to interrogating the governing values and assumptions that produced those errors in the first place.
CTL Strategic Team Development 4
A team leader inherits a demotivated team that previously had poor leadership.
Which action should be prioritized in the first 90 days?