Comprehensive Guide to Employee Motivation, Leadership, and Workplace Dynamics
Review Questions & Answers
1. What are the key elements in motivating employees?
ANS: Hire employees that have a predisposition to being motivated, set goals, provide feedback, reward excellent performance, treat employees fairly, and put new employees with motivated older employees.
2. Describe the three motives in McClelland’s motivation theory.
Three needs
Need for achievement: According to trait theory. The extent to which a person desires to be successful
Need for affiliation: The extent to which a person desires to be around other people
Need for power: According to trait theory. The extent to which a person desires to be in control of other people
3. What are Maslow’s need hierarchy theory Levels.
Self-Actualization needs,
Ego Needs,
Social Needs,
Safety Needs,
Basic Biological Needs.
5. What are the three types of self-esteem?
ANS: chronic, situational, and socially influenced
6. What are three ways to increase self-esteem?
ANS: Training seminars, ensure success by initially assigning easy tasks (self-fulfilling prophecy), have supervisors show confidence in employees (Pygmalion effect)
7. What are the three characteristics of properly set goals?
ANS: Concrete and specific, high but reasonable, self-set versus assigned
8. What are the individual incentive plans?
ANS: pay-for-performance, merit pay
9. What are the organizational incentive plans?
ANS: profit sharing, gainsharing, stock options
10. What are the three components to expectancy theory?
ANS: Expectancy, instrumentality, valence
11. What are the four factors that make up a person’s core evaluation?
ANS: self-esteem, locus of control, self-efficacy, emotional stability
12. What causes employees to be satisfied with their jobs?
ANS: Individual differences, met expectations, enjoyable tasks, enjoyable supervisors and coworkers, outwardly happy coworkers, equity in distributing rewards and resources, a change for challenge and growth
13. What are three ways to increase growth and challenge in a job?
ANS: job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment
14 What are five scales used to measure job satisfaction?
ANS: Faces Scale, Job Descriptive Index (JDI), Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), Job in General Scale (JIG), Nagy Job Satisfaction Scale
15. What are some strategies for increasing attendance?
ANS: Linking attendance to consequences (financial incentives, time off, recognition, discipline), Reducing employee stress (remove negative factors, add EAPs), Reducing illness (wellness programs, fitness programs), Not hiring absence prone employees
16. What are the four characteristics related to leader emergence?
ANS: Leader Emergence: A part of the trait theory that postulate that certain types of people will become leaders and certain types will not.
Intelligence, dominance, masculinity, self-monitoring
17. According to Hogan, what are the three reasons leaders are not successful?
ANS: lack of training, lack of intelligence, personality disorders
18. According to Fiedler, what factors determine the favorability of a situation?
ANS: Task structuredness, leader position power, leader-member relations
19. According to IMPACT theory, what are the six leadership styles and their corresponding climates?
ANS: Informational style in a climate of ignorance, Magnetic style in a climate of despair, Position style in a climate of instability, Affiliation style in a climate of anxiety, Coercive style in a climate of crisis, Tactical style in a climate of disorganization
20. According to IMPACT theory, what are the four strategies for becoming an effective leader?
ANS: Find a climate that is consistent with one’s leadership style, change one’s leadership style to fit the existing climate, change followers’ perceptions of the climate, and change the climate
21. According to path-goal theory, what are the four leadership styles?
ANS:
Instrumental style
Plans, organizes, controls
Supportive style
Shows concern for employees
Participative style
Shares information and lets employees participate
Achievement-oriented style
Sets challenging goals and rewards increases in performance
22. List and explain any four major types of power?
ANS:
•Coercive power is the use of punishment or threats to affect behavior of others.
•Reward power results from having the ability to offer something positive.
•Legitimate power involves formal authority accompanying a position in an organization.
•Expert power is derived from having certain work-related knowledge or skill.
•Referent power results from the fact that an individual is respected, admired, and liked by others.
•
23. What are the two types of stress list and explain?
ANS: Eustress
Stress converted to positive energy
Desirable outcome of stress
Motivational results
Optimal level of arousal
Distress
Negative outcome
Results in emotional and physical illness
24. List the three job characteristics associated with stress?
ANS: Role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload
25. What are the organizational characteristics associated with stress?
ANS: Person-organization fit, work environment, change, relations with others
26. What are some factors that can affect our predisposition to stress?
ANS: personality (Type A, pessimist), amount of exercise, laughter, diet, smoking, amount of sleep, self-empowerment, coping skills, use of support groups
27. What factors determine how noise will affect employee performance and satisfaction?
ANS: Pleasantness of the noise, type of task, difficulty of the task, individual differences, necessity of the noise, familiarity of the noise
28. What are the two ways that the body tries to maintain an ideal temperature?
ANS: Radiation and evaporation
29. What are the four components to effective temperature?
ANS: air temperature, humidity, air flow, temperature of objects in the environment
30. What is the profile for the typical berserker?
ANS: male, in his 40s, self-esteem is tied to his job, is fascinated, and has easy access to, guns, is usually described as a loner
31. What are three ways to reduce workplace violence?
ANS: Security measures, employee screening, management awareness
32. Identify the KSAO in the given below given sentences.(Refer Slide 29 in Unit 2)
a. for each of the following characteristics, indicate whether the characteristic is a knowledge, skill, ability, or other characteristic Some of these might fall under more than one category.
1. Finger dexterity. _____ ______
2. Driving a car. _____
3. Traffic rules. __________