MEM Leadership And Organizational Behavior 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which leadership theory focuses on the exchange relationship between leader and follower, where compliance is motivated by rewards and punishments?
- Transformational Leadership Theory
- Authentic Leadership Theory
- Transactional Leadership Theory (Correct answer)
- Adaptive Leadership Theory
Correct answer: Transactional Leadership Theory
Transactional leadership is based on a quid pro quo — followers receive rewards for performance and consequences for failure to meet expectations.
Question 2: A team experiencing 'groupthink' is MOST at risk of:
- High levels of interpersonal conflict disrupting meetings
- Making poor decisions because dissenting views are suppressed (Correct answer)
- Over-analyzing options and missing deadlines
- Rotating leadership roles too frequently
Correct answer: Making poor decisions because dissenting views are suppressed
Groupthink occurs when the desire for harmony and conformity overrides critical evaluation, leading to flawed or irrational decisions.
Question 3: According to Kotter's 8-Step Change Model, what is the FIRST step when leading organizational change?
- Communicating the change vision broadly
- Creating short-term wins to build momentum
- Establishing a sense of urgency (Correct answer)
- Forming a powerful guiding coalition
Correct answer: Establishing a sense of urgency
Kotter identifies creating urgency as the foundation — without it, employees lack motivation to abandon the status quo.
Question 4: An MEM student is analyzing why a technically sound engineering initiative failed after implementation. The MOST likely organizational behavior factor is:
- Insufficient compute resources allocated to the project
- Lack of stakeholder buy-in and change management planning (Correct answer)
- Too many engineers assigned to the project team
- Failure to use the latest software development framework
Correct answer: Lack of stakeholder buy-in and change management planning
Technical soundness alone rarely determines project success; organizational resistance and poor change management are leading causes of initiative failure.
Question 5: In equity theory, an employee who perceives they are underrewarded relative to peers will MOST likely:
- Increase their effort to earn higher rewards
- Reduce their effort or seek to restore equity through other means (Correct answer)
- Request a formal organizational review
- Immediately resign from the organization
Correct answer: Reduce their effort or seek to restore equity through other means
Adams' Equity Theory predicts that perceived inequity creates tension, motivating individuals to reduce inputs or change their comparison referent to restore balance.
Question 6: Which of the following best describes a 'learning organization' as defined by Peter Senge?
- An organization that requires all employees to complete annual training courses
- An organization that continually expands its capacity to create its desired future through shared vision and systems thinking (Correct answer)
- An organization that benchmarks competitors' best practices quarterly
- An organization with a dedicated corporate university and training budget
Correct answer: An organization that continually expands its capacity to create its desired future through shared vision and systems thinking
Senge's 'The Fifth Discipline' defines a learning organization through five disciplines: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning.
Question 7: An engineering leader who attributes a team member's consistent lateness to 'being lazy' rather than considering traffic or family obligations is demonstrating:
- Confirmation bias
- The fundamental attribution error (Correct answer)
- The halo effect
- Anchoring bias
Correct answer: The fundamental attribution error
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute others' behaviors to personal character traits while underestimating situational factors.
MEM Leadership And Organizational Behavior 5
Which leadership theory focuses on the exchange relationship between leader and follower, where compliance is motivated by rewards and punishments?