Chapter 10: Accountability in the Workplace

Question 1

____ begins with clear goals and expectations against which you can measure performance.

Answer 1

Accountability

Question 2

____ involves both negative and positive responses to performance.

Answer 2

Accountability

Question 3

“____” is just as important as acting on unacceptable performance.

Answer 3

Catching employees doing it right

Question 4

Ongoing communication with your team members is crucial to ____.

Answer 4

accountability

Question 5

Effective ____ don’t win by making last-second decisions

Answer 5

coaches

Question 6

____ means interacting with team members by having regular and frequent conversations about performance.

Answer 6

Coaching

Question 7

____ means communicating both organizational and personal goals.

Answer 7

Coaching

Question 8

Good ____ means helping employees be prepared for each wave of change and learning to learn.

Answer 8

coaching

Question 9

One way to encourage positive performance and professional development is to offer your employees “____” that encourage them to develop their skills and talents.

Answer 9

stretch assignments

Question 10

Effective ____ recognize that the smallest incidents can foster learning and growth.

Answer 10

coaches

Question 11

All ____ need not occur face-to-face; it can happen by e-mail, over the phone , or through a written note.

Answer 11

coaching

Question 12

Key components of effective ____ are empathy, caring, listening and confidentiality.

Answer 12

counseling

Question 13

You may put on your ____ hat if you notice, for example, that an employee seems distressed or is getting into conflicts with another employee.

Answer 13

counseling

Question 14

With ____, you may intellectually understand how someone else is felling and you may feel concern form them, but with ____ you recognize how such emotions feel within yourself and use that emotional self-awareness to relate to another person.

Answer 14

sympathy / empathy

Question 15

____ allows you to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.

Answer 15

Empathy

Question 16

____ goes beyond simply accommodating someone’s situation and feelings to include holding regard for their situation and feelings

Answer 16

Caring

Question 17

____ involves taking an interest in your employees including what is going on in their lives and how they feel about their jobs.

Answer 17

Listening

Question 18

____ means not revealing to a third party what an employee told you in trust.

Answer 18

Confidentiality

Question 19

There are two exceptions to confidentiality in your counseling role:

Answer 19

1. If an employee is being referred for professional assistance
2. If a person is a danger to himself or others.

Question 20

Sometimes ___ and /or ____ do not raise an employee’s performance to the desired level.

Answer 20

coaching and/or counseling

Question 21

A ____is a more rigorous and structured form of coaching

Answer 21

performance improvement plan

Question 22

A ____ is generally used when preliminary approaches fail to produce desired improvement.

Answer 22

performance improvement plan

Question 23

As a supervisor, you must ____ a balance between ignoring rule violations and pouncing on every mistake.

Answer 23

strike

Question 24

The purpose of any disciplinary measure is to change employee behavior or improve job performance, not to ____.

Answer 24

punish the employee

Question 25

Informal ____ are often a good way to present the facts.

Answer 25

memos

Question 26

Keep in mind that the purpose of disciplinary action is to change behavior, not to ____

Answer 26

punish the employee

Question 27

Employees with good records who break minor rules will most likely respond positively to an ____.

Answer 27

informal talk

Question 28

In a ____, you tell the employee that his or her conduct or performance must improve or more serious action will be taken.

Answer 28

spoken warning

Question 29

The record of the spoken warning should be removed from the employee’s work file after a period of times, usually ___ months.

Answer 29

6

Question 30

A ____ is used for more serious offenses or for employees who have broken the same rule several times.

Answer 30

written warning

Question 31

A ____ means that an employee is removed from his or her job without pay, usually from one to thirty days.

Answer 31

suspension

Question 32

An employee’s ____ may be reduced if suspension fails to bring about a change in behavior.

Answer 32

salary

Question 33

A ____ is unlikely to improve an employee’s behavior and may actually make it worse. For this reason, ____ is rarely used as a from of discipline or is used as a last resort before dismissal.

Answer 33

demotion

Question 34

____ is reserved for the most serious offenses and is used only after other steps have failed.

Answer 34

Dismissal

Question 35

____, while not a disciplinary action, is sometimes used as a means of addressing persistent performance or behavior problems.

Answer 35

Transfer

Question 36

____ always address dismissal, and most include a clause stating that dismissal can take place only “for cause” or “just cause”.

Answer 36

Labor contracts

Question 37

____ is a legal term for a statement you intend to prove.

Answer 37

Allegation

Question 38

____ is not a negative sanction or reaction to someone breaking the rules, instead, it involves a continuum of responses ranging from positive reinforcement through coaching, counseling, and mentoring and finally to sanctions such as progressive discipline.

Answer 38

Accountability

Question 39

An effective leader must be willing to and capable of using the entire continuum of ____.

Answer 39

accountability

Question 40

One way is to implement a _____: a private, regularly scheduled, one-on-one meeting with each of your team members.

Answer 40

personal management interview program

Question 41

_____ is only valid when there is a personality conflict between the employee and the supervisor that keeps both from performing effectively and affects the morale of the whole unit, or when an employee’s skill set is better suited to a different position in another work unit.

Answer 41

Transferring