Leadership and management module - practice questions

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Leadership and management refresher module - Practice Questions
1. A key function of management is the developing other employees. Briefly describe five
ways you will employ for employee development.
2. Global competition, new technology, growth and increased complexity are factors
affecting the oil and gas industry today. Briefly explain five ways in which NNPC can
adapt successfully in playing in the environment.
3. There are four dominant leadership styles. Identify your own and describe a situation
where it has worked perfectly and a situation where it was a fatal failure. What lessons
did you learn from the experiences?
4. Describe the term leadership in your own words. Give an example from your personal
experience in which you observed good leadership and one when you observed bad
leadership. Explain how you could have done better.
5. Describe your management style and explain why and when you think it works best.
React to the statement that “once you find your management style, you should always
stick with it.”
6. Is it fair and reasonable to terminate a long-term employee who is unable to learn a new
task? Explain how as a manager you will handle poor performers.
7. As a manager, how will you build a perfect team out of imperfect people?
8. What is Corporate Social Responsibility? Explain why you think the term has increasing
impact especially in the oil industry.
9. Leadership is three-dimensional: leading up, leading down and leading across. Describe
situations in which you have used each one and suggest what factors made it successful
or fail.
10. Meetings are either effective or unproductive. Describe your experience of a
consistently effective meeting you have attended and a chronically unproductive
meeting you have attended. What in your opinion made the difference and how would
you have done better?

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11. After implementing a change, you are still having resistance from some staff. Identify
three low-risk strategy and three high-risk strategy for dealing with the change and then
justify which one will be more effective in change management
12. “Execution is everything.” Describe the most significant thing you have accomplished in
the past three years and outline factors that you think helped you to accomplish them.
13. What was your role in your department’s most recent success?
14. Describe a situation where working with a team produced more successful outcomes
than if you had completed the project on your own.
15. As a manager, what do you do when people disagree with your ideas? Describe a
situation where you had to arrive at a compromise or guide others to a compromise.
Identify what factors you believe helped you.
16. Describe a situation where you felt pressured to act in a way that would compromise
your values or those of the organization. What were your learning points?
17. A total safety culture is the goal of all reputable organizations. As a manager, describe
your role in achieving a total safety culture.
18. “Delegation is management function but empowerment is a leader’s turf. “ Comment on
this statement, distinguish between the two terms and identify situations where each is
best applicable.
19. Progressing an idea to a project will necessarily require the making of a business case.
Describe a business case that that translated an idea to a project and secured a budget
to execute. What factors made the case to win?
20. 21st century workplace poses new issues and challenges for organizations to remain
competitive and for employees to adapt properly. Identify five of these issues and
explain how prepared you are as a manager to face them.