Week 2 >> Graded Quiz >> Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
1. What would be a mistake in empathic listening?
- Suspending judgment of the other person
- Following, not leading the conversation
- Remaining exclusively focused on logic without attention to emotions
- Paraphrasing and reflecting accurately what the listener has understood
2. Shyam is a project leader. He has just come out of a conversation with one of the members of his team. As you are a close colleague, he shares with you the details of his dialogue session with his team member. Which of the following will convince you that he has practiced empathic listening?
- Shyam remembers the dialogue verbatim – all the words and details that his team member had expressed
- Shyam is able to tell you how his team member sees and experiences the issues and the context
- Shyam has been able to lead the conversation in the direction that he had intended
- Shyam is able to concisely capture the merits and demerits of the different points made by the team member
3. Which of the following statements will you DISAGREE with?
- Listening is not applicable to crucial conversations because these involve high stakes, and so people are required to assert more
- With numerous distractions in today’s world, people tend not to listen too well
- Listening should be learnt as a skill and an attitude – apart from skills, you need a mindset of respect, curiosity and non-evaluative stance
- We must listen with both the right brain as well as left – for feeling and for meaning
4. You are a project leader. Rita has recently joined your project team. She comes to you with a very good suggestion for enhancing the effectiveness of the project. You can see that she is excited and enthusiastic about the idea. Even as you are listening to her idea, you think of a minor extension of that proposal that is likely to enhance the quality of the idea a little more. What, according to Marshall Goldsmith, should you say?
- “Great idea! Let us implement it without delay”
- “You’re very new to this team. Why don’t you first build stronger relationships with other team members? Then your idea will become more acceptable”
- “It’s a very good idea. But it can be made even better if you do it this way”
- “Please send me an e-mail on this. Right away, I can think of a way of improving it further. I’ll also get inputs from 3 or 4 other members, and then take it for implementation”
5. Rao and Reshma were key members of a project team headed by Freida. Rao was technically competent and understood the project requirements very well, but lacked self-confidence. Reshma, on the other hand, was very confident, but lacked technical experience and expertise. As Freida was required to take over another project immediately, Rao was selected as project leader, but Freida continued to devote 20 % of her time to this project. After 5 to 6 weeks of taking charge, Rao begins to feel that he requires some help with his leadership style as the project is getting behind schedule. Freida decides to coach him using a facilitative style. Which of the following is the most appropriate approach?
- On the basis of her observations, Freida diagnoses Rao’s problem as lack of assertiveness. She points out this problem and gives him some tips on how to enhance his assertiveness.
- Freida sits together with Rao to generate alternative solutions and encourages Rao to consider the consequences of each of those alternatives.
- Freida points out that Rao is ultimately responsible for ensuring project performance and outcomes, and so should come up with solutions rather than problems. She does this with the intention of putting pressure on Rao to get over his timidity.
- Freida shares her personal experience of she had faced and solved such problems even when she was much younger and less experienced.
6. In NASA, on one hand, the “tiger team” in Apollo 13 manned Moon landing mission achieved stupendous performance; on the other hand, the Debris Assessment Team of the Columbia mission made disastrous decisions that killed seven astronauts. Based on the experiences of these two groups, which of the following is NOT the RIGHT thing for a team leader to do?
- Create psychological safety for people to help them express their views openly without risk of appearing negative, ignorant or incompetent
- Create a compelling mission and clear purpose for the team
- Build on diverse viewpoints and perspectives to foster new ideas and synergy
- Bring very bright individuals in the team, and not tie them up with specific expectations
7. The lab and the operations personnel had endless interpersonal problems. There was large number of requests for tests in the morning, but the lab was required to calibrate their instruments first thing in the morning. The calibration took an hour, and during this period, there was a pile-up of samples causing frayed tempers all around. The new leader shifted the calibration of instruments to the night shift when the workload was much lighter. As a result, at the peak morning time, the calibrated instruments were all ready to churn out results. With this change, the interpersonal problems practically disappeared. How would you analyze the situation from GRPI framework?
- When the processes/ procedures were modified in the right direction, the interpersonal difficulties went down significantly
- Interpersonal issues are invariably caused by ego hassles, and people need emotional intelligence training
- When there are role overlaps, say between operations and lab personnel, interpersonal problems arise
- Since lab personnel and operations people have different goals and priorities, interpersonal difficulties between these two groups are not surprising
8. For effective delegation, the well-known author Marshall Goldsmith recommends that we set up a dialogue session with each of the direct reports. Among the options given below, which would be a wrong question to ask a direct report to enhance delegation?
- Am I getting more involved in any place than I should be getting involved – in other words, am I micro-managing any place?
- Are there areas where I ought to get more involved and more helpful, that I am not doing enough at the moment?
- Am I and our business unit doing enough to simultaneously attend to the twin challenges of performing today and creating tomorrow?
- Am I getting involved in areas of business that you don’t think that I should get involved with? And would you be willing to take over that responsibility?
9. On your project, you have four team members. Payal and Pritam are old hands, while Anwar and Aparna have little work experience and so less skilled. As the scope of the project has been significantly increased, you have decided to delegate some of your responsibilities so that you can attend to the new complexities that have arisen. As you progress through with the delegation, which one of the following statements will you DISAGREE with?
- Examine the scope, complexity, inherent ambiguity and frequency of this task, and determine whether Anwar, Aparna, Payal or Pritam would be the right choice for a given responsibility
- After assigning tasks to each individual, ensure that each member is given sufficient authority and resources needed for successful completion
- Rather than make one person responsible for an entire task, break each task into smaller bits and assign these to different individuals
- None of the above
10. Your colleague has entrusted a part of the project to Jose. Jose supervises three members, and has been having some difficulties with delegation. Your colleague mentions to you that she plans to coach Jose on how to delegate successfully. Which of the following delegation guidelines that your colleague has jotted down, would you disagree with?
- Clearly describe the task, project or function to each of the three members, and ensure that each person clearly understands the purpose of the task and the deadlines
- If the delegation to any of the individuals is not working as per plans, quickly take the work back from him/ her and assign it to another member
- With each of the three members, review the scope of the employee’s responsibilities and whether or not the individual demonstrates necessary commitment
- Establish standards of performance, measures of success and levels of accountability, and institute necessary checkpoints to monitor progress
