Leadership Assessment, Practice and Future Directions

Introduction

Leadership effectiveness is not adequately demonstrated by a leader’s position, charisma, or personal reputation. It is demonstrated through the quality of decisions, relationships, ethical conduct, learning processes, and outcomes produced over time. Contemporary organizations operate in conditions of uncertainty, interdependence, technological change, workforce diversity, and growing expectations of social and environmental responsibility. Consequently, leadership assessment must move beyond the question, “Is this person a good leader?” and ask more precise questions: effective for whom, under what conditions, through which behaviours, and with what consequences?

This chapter integrates leadership theories with practical assessment and development methods. It examines competency models, psychometric and behavioural assessments, 360-degree feedback, and outcome measures. It then considers how leaders can combine theoretical perspectives through cases and simulations. Finally, it evaluates distributed, shared, servant, adaptive, and sustainable leadership as important directions in contemporary practice.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, learners should be able to:

1. Explain why leadership effectiveness requires multiple forms of evidence.
2. Design and critique a leadership competency model.
3. Interpret 360-degree feedback responsibly and ethically.
4. Distinguish leader behaviours, intermediate processes, and organizational outcomes.
5. Integrate leadership theories when analysing complex cases.
6. Compare distributed, shared, servant, adaptive, and sustainable leadership.
7. Evaluate the limitations, risks, and governance requirements of leadership assessment.
8. Develop a practical leadership-development and evaluation plan.

1. Leadership Effectiveness as a Multidimensional Construct

Leadership effectiveness is a judgment about the extent to which leadership contributes to valued individual, team, organizational, and societal outcomes. It is not identical to authority, popularity, short-term performance, or employee satisfaction. A leader may achieve quarterly targets by creating fear, suppressing dissent, or exhausting employees. Such performance may be financially visible but organizationally fragile and ethically unacceptable.

A useful analytical model separates four levels:

The relationship among these levels is neither automatic nor linear. Capability may not become behaviour without motivation or opportunity. Behaviour may not produce results when resources are inadequate or the environment is hostile. Outcomes may also be affected by market conditions, inherited systems, or luck. Assessment should therefore avoid attributing every result to the leader.

Leadership effectiveness is also time-dependent. A directive intervention may be appropriate during an immediate safety crisis but damaging if it becomes a permanent style. Similarly, consensus-building can strengthen commitment but may be inappropriate when immediate action is required. Effective leadership is therefore contingent: it involves matching judgement and action to context while preserving core ethical standards.

2. Competency Models for Leadership

A competency is an observable capability involving knowledge, skill, behaviour, judgement, and sometimes motivation. A leadership competency model organizes these capabilities into a framework used for selection, development, performance management, succession planning, and organizational learning.

Common competency domains include:

• Strategic thinking: interpreting complex environments, identifying patterns, and setting direction.
• Execution: converting intent into coordinated action, priorities, and accountability.
• Relational leadership: building trust, listening, influencing, coaching, and managing conflict.
• Adaptive capacity: learning from uncertainty, revising assumptions, and mobilizing others through change.
• Ethical judgement: recognizing competing obligations and acting with integrity, fairness, and transparency.
• Inclusive leadership: ensuring that diverse perspectives can contribute and that power differences are addressed.
• Systems thinking: understanding interdependence, unintended consequences, and stakeholder effects.
• Sustainable stewardship: balancing present performance with long-term social, ecological, and institutional viability.

A sound model distinguishes competencies from values, personality traits, and outcomes. “Integrity” may be a value; “discloses conflicts of interest before decisions” is a behavioural indicator; “low regulatory risk” is an outcome. Confusing these categories makes assessment vague.

Designing a competency model

A practical design process includes:

1. Clarify purpose. A model for executive selection may differ from one for frontline supervision.
2. Analyse context. Examine strategy, culture, stakeholder expectations, risks, and future capabilities.
3. Consult stakeholders. Include leaders, employees, customers, professional bodies, and where relevant, community representatives.
4. Define domains. Limit the model to a manageable number of meaningful categories.
5. Write behavioural indicators. Describe observable actions at different proficiency levels.
6. Test validity and fairness. Determine whether the model predicts relevant performance without disadvantaging groups unnecessarily.
7. Review periodically. Competencies must evolve as work, technology, and social expectations change.

A competency statement should be specific enough to guide observation. “Communicates effectively” is weak. “Explains the rationale, acknowledges uncertainty, invites questions, and adapts the message to affected stakeholders” is more assessable.

Proficiency levels

A four-level scale can support development:

Ratings should be anchored by examples rather than numerical precision. A score of 4 is meaningful only if assessors share an interpretation of what level 4 looks like.

3. Leadership Assessment Methods

No single instrument captures leadership adequately. A robust assessment combines methods that illuminate different aspects of performance.

Interviews and critical incidents

Structured interviews ask every candidate comparable questions and evaluate responses against predetermined criteria. Critical-incident questions—such as “Describe a time when you had to challenge a powerful stakeholder”—reveal reasoning, self-awareness, and behaviour under pressure. Interviewers should assess evidence, not confidence or similarity to themselves.

Observation and behavioural simulation

Role plays, in-basket exercises, negotiation tasks, crisis simulations, and group problem-solving activities allow assessors to observe behaviour. Simulations are especially valuable when consequences of real-world experimentation are high. They should include clear scoring rubrics, trained assessors, and opportunities for reflection.

Psychometric assessment

Cognitive, personality, motivation, and values instruments may contribute useful information. They should not be treated as destiny or used outside their validated purpose. A personality preference is not a leadership capability, and a test score cannot replace evidence of ethical conduct. Informed consent, confidentiality, accessibility, and qualified interpretation are essential.

Self-assessment

Self-assessment promotes reflection and ownership. Its main limitation is that self-perception may differ from observed behaviour. The gap itself can be developmental information, but it should not be interpreted automatically as dishonesty or incompetence.

Outcome and organizational data

Performance indicators, retention, customer outcomes, safety records, quality measures, project delivery, innovation, and stakeholder trust can provide evidence. However, measures must be interpreted in context. A leader may inherit a strong or weak team; a target may encourage gaming; and an apparently positive result may conceal harm elsewhere.

Evidence triangulation

Triangulation means comparing evidence from different sources and methods. Agreement increases confidence, while disagreement prompts investigation. The objective is not to calculate a leader’s “true score” mechanically but to form a reasoned, contextual judgement.

4. 360-Degree Feedback

360-degree feedback gathers perceptions from multiple groups, commonly including the focal leader, manager, peers, direct reports, and sometimes customers or partners. It is primarily a developmental process, although some organizations use it in appraisal. Combining development and high-stakes reward decisions can reduce candour and increase political behaviour.

A responsible process includes:

1. Define the purpose and competencies.
2. Select raters with sufficient opportunity to observe the behaviour.
3. Protect confidentiality, especially where groups are small.
4. Explain rating scales and provide behavioural examples.
5. Aggregate small rater groups where identification is possible.
6. Use a qualified facilitator to interpret results.
7. Identify two or three priority behaviours rather than attempting total transformation.
8. Create an action plan with practice opportunities and follow-up measurement.

Feedback should be interpreted through three lenses:

• Agreement: Do different groups see similar patterns?
• Importance: Is the behaviour important for the role and context?
• Changeability: Can the leader influence it through practice, support, or system redesign?

A gap between self and others can be informative. Overestimation may indicate limited self-awareness; underestimation may reflect low confidence, cultural norms, or insufficient visibility. Ratings are perceptions, not objective facts, and should be supplemented with examples.

Common errors

Halo effects occur when one favourable impression influences all ratings. Horn effects operate in the opposite direction. Recency bias overweights recent events, while leniency, severity, central-tendency, similarity, and retaliation biases distort scores. Cultural expectations can also affect how assertiveness, disagreement, emotional expression, and authority are interpreted.

Organizations should therefore train raters, monitor adverse patterns, provide appeal or clarification mechanisms, and prohibit retaliation. Feedback data should not be used to label people permanently or justify discriminatory decisions.

5. Measuring Leadership Outcomes

Evaluation should connect leadership development to a theory of change. A simple chain is:

Development input → leader learning → behavioural change → team process → organizational and stakeholder outcomes

For example, coaching may improve a leader’s listening skill; improved listening may increase psychological safety; psychological safety may improve error reporting and learning; learning may improve service quality. Each link requires evidence rather than assumption.

Measures can be classified as:

• Leading indicators: coaching frequency, quality of team dialogue, decision-cycle time, participation, and reported psychological safety.
• Lagging indicators: turnover, customer satisfaction, safety incidents, profitability, project quality, and engagement.
• Balancing measures: indicators that prevent improvement in one area from creating harm elsewhere, such as productivity alongside burnout or cost reduction alongside service quality.

Where numerical evaluation is used, a basic change score is:

Here, Y_before and Y_after are measurements taken before and after an intervention, and ∆Y is the observed change in the same units. This calculation describes change but does not prove that leadership development caused it. Attribution requires a credible comparison, such as a control group, staggered implementation, repeated measurements, or qualitative process evidence.

A percentage change may be calculated as:

This is appropriate only when Y_before is non-zero and a ratio interpretation is meaningful. It can mislead when the baseline is very small, when measures are ordinal, or when external factors dominate.

A balanced evaluation might combine: a 360-degree behavioural measure, team climate data, objective performance indicators, qualitative interviews, and evidence of unintended consequences. Statistical significance, where calculated, should not be confused with practical significance. A small numerical improvement may be statistically reliable but organizationally unimportant; a meaningful improvement may be difficult to detect in a small sample.

6. Integrating Theories Through Cases and Simulations

Leadership theories are lenses rather than competing brands that must be adopted exclusively. Trait and skills approaches help identify capabilities; behavioural theories focus attention on actions; situational and contingency approaches emphasize fit; transformational leadership explains purpose and motivation; transactional leadership clarifies exchange and accountability; authentic, ethical, and servant perspectives emphasize values and relationships; adaptive leadership addresses learning under conditions where technical expertise is insufficient.

A complex situation may require several lenses. Consider a hospital leader responding to repeated medication errors. A behavioural lens asks whether communication and supervision are adequate. A systems lens examines workflow, staffing, technology, and reporting incentives. An adaptive lens asks which beliefs and routines must change. An ethical lens focuses on patient safety, transparency, and responsibility. A servant lens emphasizes the needs and dignity of patients and staff. No single theory provides the entire diagnosis.

A case-analysis protocol

1. Describe the situation without premature judgement. Identify actors, power, constraints, time pressure, and stakeholders.
2. Separate technical from adaptive elements. A technical problem has a known solution; an adaptive challenge requires learning, experimentation, and shifts in values or relationships.
3. Map competing interests. Identify who gains, who bears risk, and who is excluded from the conversation.
4. Apply multiple theories. Ask what each theory illuminates and what it ignores.
5. Generate options. Include immediate action, communication, participation, experimentation, and longer-term system change.
6. Assess consequences. Consider effectiveness, ethics, feasibility, equity, and sustainability.
7. Choose, act, learn, and revise. Leadership is iterative rather than a one-time diagnosis.

Simulations can make these processes visible. A well-designed simulation gives participants incomplete information, conflicting objectives, role relationships, and evolving consequences. Observers should assess behaviours such as framing, listening, coalition-building, dissent management, ethical reasoning, and learning. Debriefing is essential: participants should examine not only what they did, but also what assumptions shaped their action.

7. Emerging and Integrative Forms of Leadership

Distributed leadership

Distributed leadership views leadership as stretched across people, roles, and practices rather than located solely in a formal office. Expertise may move to the person best positioned to interpret a problem. This approach is useful in knowledge-intensive organizations, schools, healthcare, and cross-functional projects.

Its benefits include broader expertise, resilience, ownership, and faster local response. Its risks include ambiguity, coordination failure, hidden informal power, and unclear accountability. Distribution should not mean absence of leadership. Formal leaders still design conditions, clarify purpose, allocate resources, protect dissent, and ensure responsibility.

Shared leadership

Shared leadership refers to mutual influence among team members in pursuit of collective goals. It differs from merely delegating tasks. Influence is reciprocal and may shift according to expertise and situation. Shared leadership is supported by psychological safety, competence, trust, role clarity, and systems for resolving disagreement.

It is less effective when tasks are highly individualised, team members lack relevant expertise, or emergencies require a clear command structure. It should therefore be designed contingently rather than treated as universally superior.

Servant leadership

Servant leadership, associated particularly with Robert Greenleaf, places the growth, dignity, and well-being of followers and communities at the centre of leadership. Listening, empathy, stewardship, healing, and community-building are central themes.

Servant leadership challenges ego-centred authority and can strengthen trust and development. Yet it must not be confused with passivity, excessive accommodation, or avoidance of difficult decisions. Serving others may require setting boundaries, confronting misconduct, making unpopular choices, and protecting those who are vulnerable.

Adaptive leadership

Adaptive leadership distinguishes technical solutions from challenges in which stakeholders must learn, change priorities, or renegotiate identity and values. Adaptive leaders regulate distress, maintain disciplined attention, give the work back to people, and protect voices from below.

The approach is powerful in transformation and uncertainty but difficult to operationalize. It can also be misused to excuse inadequate expertise or to place excessive burden on employees. Adaptive work should be accompanied by appropriate resources, authority, and psychological protection.

Sustainable leadership

Sustainable leadership integrates long-term organizational viability with social justice, ecological responsibility, and intergenerational impact. It asks whether present success depletes people, communities, institutions, or natural systems.

Sustainable leadership requires stakeholder analysis, responsible procurement, risk governance, transparent reporting, and attention to externalities. A leader cannot claim sustainability merely because a project has a green label. Claims must be supported by credible evidence and should avoid greenwashing. Sustainability also includes human sustainability: manageable workloads, fair opportunity, inclusion, and development.

8. Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Leadership Assessment

Digital platforms can support pulse surveys, collaboration analysis, learning records, and pattern detection. Artificial intelligence may assist with summarizing qualitative feedback, generating simulation scenarios, or identifying themes in large datasets. These uses are legitimate only when they preserve human judgement and protect participants.

Risks include surveillance, opaque scoring, algorithmic bias, data leakage, false precision, and the conversion of contextual behaviour into simplistic rankings. Communication metadata cannot reliably reveal trust or leadership quality. AI-generated interpretations should be treated as provisional and reviewed by qualified humans.

Good governance requires:

• informed notice about data collection and purpose;
• data minimization and appropriate retention limits;
• access controls and security;
• auditability and bias testing;
• human review of consequential decisions;
• a mechanism to correct inaccurate records;
• compliance with applicable privacy, employment, equality, and professional regulations.

Technology should support developmental conversations, not replace them.

9. Illustrative Case: The Northbridge Service Transformation

This is a fictional illustrative case.

Background

Northbridge, a regional public-service agency, had introduced a digital case-management system. Senior leaders expected faster service, but six months later employee turnover had increased, customer complaints had risen, and managers blamed staff for “resistance.” A staff survey showed low psychological safety and little confidence that senior leaders understood frontline work.

Problem

The director, Maya Chen, initially considered a stronger performance regime. However, data showed that the software generated duplicate tasks, service targets conflicted with complex client needs, and employees feared reporting errors. The problem was therefore not simply employee motivation. It involved technical design, workflow, power, trust, and competing definitions of performance.

Analysis through multiple theories

A transactional perspective highlighted the need for clear standards and accountability, but could not explain why stricter targets might worsen concealment. A transformational perspective supported a compelling purpose, but a vision alone would not repair defective processes. An adaptive perspective identified the need for staff and managers to learn new routines and renegotiate assumptions about efficiency. A servant perspective directed attention to clients and employees who bore the greatest burden. A distributed perspective suggested involving experienced caseworkers in redesign and allowing local expertise to influence implementation.

Approach

Chen established a cross-level design group including caseworkers, IT specialists, supervisors, clients’ representatives, and union members. The group mapped the workflow, identified duplicate tasks, and piloted revised procedures in two offices. Managers received coaching in listening, inquiry, and constructive challenge. A confidential reporting channel was introduced, while performance dashboards added quality and workload measures to speed indicators.

Chen also made a public commitment: no employee would be punished for reporting a system-related error during the pilot, provided the error was disclosed and addressed responsibly. This did not remove accountability for negligence or misconduct; it distinguished learning from blame.

Outcome

After four months, the pilot offices reported higher error visibility, reduced duplicate work, and improved staff confidence. Service speed improved modestly rather than dramatically, but quality and employee retention indicators improved. The agency decided to scale the redesign gradually, continuing to monitor workload, equity, and client experience.

Learning points

1. Effective leadership assessment must examine systems and context, not only individual traits.
2. Distributed leadership can mobilize expertise while formal leaders retain accountability.
3. Adaptive change requires experimentation and tolerance for difficult learning.
4. Servant leadership includes protecting dignity and voice, not avoiding performance expectations.
5. Outcome evaluation should include balancing measures so that speed does not conceal quality or human cost.

10. Best Practices for Leadership Development and Evaluation

An integrated programme should begin with a clear organizational challenge rather than a generic leadership course. The organization should define expected behaviours, provide practice in realistic situations, connect learning to work assignments, and give repeated feedback. Managers must model the behaviours they seek from others.

A practical cycle is:

1. Diagnose capability, context, and stakeholder needs.
2. Establish a small number of development priorities.
3. Practise through coaching, simulations, stretch assignments, and peer learning.
4. Apply behaviours to a meaningful organizational challenge.
5. Gather feedback and outcome evidence.
6. Reflect on unintended effects.
7. Revise the intervention and institutionalize useful practices.

Assessment should be developmental, proportionate, transparent, and evidence-informed. It should recognize that leadership is both personal and structural: individuals can improve, but systems must provide authority, resources, incentives, and psychological safety for improved leadership to matter.

Challenges and Limitations

Leadership assessment faces persistent validity problems. Ratings are influenced by visibility, status, culture, relationships, and political interests. Outcomes are difficult to attribute because organizations are complex systems. Competency models can become bureaucratic checklists or encode the preferences of dominant groups. Distributed leadership can conceal unequal burdens, while servant rhetoric can mask exploitation. Adaptive leadership can be invoked to shift responsibility downward. Sustainability claims can be symbolic rather than substantive.

These limitations do not make assessment impossible. They require humility, triangulation, transparency, contextual interpretation, and regular review. The central ethical principle is that assessment should improve leadership and organizational life, not merely classify people.

Chapter Summary

Leadership effectiveness is multidimensional and must be evaluated through capabilities, behaviours, team processes, outcomes, and stakeholder consequences. Competency models translate broad expectations into observable behaviours, but they should be context-sensitive, inclusive, and periodically revised. No assessment method is sufficient by itself. Structured interviews, observation, simulations, psychometrics, self-assessment, organizational data, and 360-degree feedback provide complementary evidence.

360-degree feedback is most useful when treated as a confidential developmental process supported by trained raters, behavioural indicators, skilled facilitation, and follow-up practice. Outcome evaluation should distinguish leading indicators, lagging indicators, and balancing measures. Changes in performance can be calculated, but simple before-and-after differences do not establish causation.

Leadership theories are complementary analytical lenses. Cases and simulations enable leaders to diagnose technical and adaptive challenges, consider power and ethics, and integrate behavioural, situational, transformational, servant, systems, and ethical perspectives. Distributed, shared, servant, adaptive, and sustainable leadership respond to contemporary complexity but each has conditions, limitations, and governance requirements. Technology and AI can support assessment, yet privacy, bias, surveillance, and human accountability must remain central concerns.

Key Terms

360-degree feedback: Developmental feedback collected from multiple groups who interact with a leader.

Adaptive leadership: Leadership that mobilizes learning and changes in values, habits, and relationships when technical solutions are insufficient.

Balancing measure: An indicator used to detect whether improvement in one area creates harm elsewhere.

Behavioural indicator: An observable action that demonstrates a competency.

Competency: An integrated capability involving knowledge, skill, judgement, behaviour, and sometimes motivation.

Distributed leadership: Leadership influence spread across people, roles, and practices.

Ethical leadership: Leadership grounded in integrity, fairness, responsibility, and concern for affected stakeholders.

Halo effect: The tendency for one overall impression to influence ratings of several different qualities.

Leading indicator: A measure that may signal future performance or change.

Lagging indicator: A measure of an outcome that has already occurred.

Psychological safety: A shared belief that people can speak up, question, or report concerns without unreasonable interpersonal punishment.

Shared leadership: Reciprocal influence among team members pursuing collective goals.

Servant leadership: Leadership that prioritizes the growth, dignity, well-being, and development of others and the wider community.

Stakeholder: An individual or group affected by, or able to affect, organizational decisions.

Sustainable leadership: Leadership that integrates long-term organizational, social, ecological, and intergenerational responsibilities.

Systems thinking: Analysis of relationships, interdependence, feedback, and unintended consequences.

Technical challenge: A problem for which relevant expertise and an established solution are available.

Triangulation: Comparing evidence from multiple sources or methods to strengthen interpretation.

Review Questions

5 Short Answer Questions

1. Why is leadership effectiveness not equivalent to short-term organizational performance?
2. What is the difference between a competency and a behavioural indicator?
3. Identify two advantages and two limitations of 360-degree feedback.
4. Distinguish a leading indicator from a lagging indicator.
5. What is meant by distributed leadership?

5 Long Answer Questions

1. Explain how a leadership competency model can be designed, implemented, and periodically validated.
2. Evaluate the ethical and practical requirements for using 360-degree feedback in a university or organization.
3. Discuss how leadership theories can be integrated rather than applied as isolated models.
4. Compare servant leadership and adaptive leadership, including their strengths and limitations.
5. Explain why sustainable leadership requires balancing organizational performance with stakeholder and ecological responsibilities.

3 Analytical / Application Questions

1. A manager receives high self-ratings for inclusion but low ratings from direct reports. Design a process for interpreting the discrepancy and creating a development plan.
2. An organization improves productivity while employee burnout and customer complaints increase. Propose a balanced leadership evaluation framework and justify the measures selected.
3. Using the Northbridge case, identify the technical and adaptive elements, evaluate Chen’s leadership approach, and recommend two additional actions for the next stage of implementation.

Multiple Choice Questions with Answers

Question 1

Which statement best describes leadership effectiveness?

A. It is primarily the leader’s popularity among employees.

B. It is the extent to which leadership produces valued outcomes through appropriate behaviours and processes.

C. It is the ability to achieve targets regardless of how they are achieved.

D. It is a stable personality trait possessed by senior managers.

Correct Answer: B. It is the extent to which leadership produces valued outcomes through appropriate behaviours and processes.

Question 2

Which is the strongest example of a behavioural indicator?

A. Integrity

B. Strategic orientation

C. Explains uncertainty, invites questions, and adapts communication to stakeholders

D. High organizational performance

Correct Answer: C. Explains uncertainty, invites questions, and adapts communication to stakeholders

Question 3

The principal purpose of triangulation in leadership assessment is to:

A. Replace qualitative evidence with numerical scores.

B. Compare evidence from multiple sources and methods.

C. Ensure that every rater gives the same score.

D. Measure personality without using interviews.

Correct Answer: B. Compare evidence from multiple sources and methods.

Question 4

Which practice best supports responsible 360-degree feedback?

A. Publishing each direct report’s ratings by name

B. Using feedback only to determine annual bonuses

C. Providing behavioural examples, confidentiality, facilitation, and follow-up

D. Allowing the leader to select only favourable raters

Correct Answer: C. Providing behavioural examples, confidentiality, facilitation, and follow-up

Question 5

What does a before-and-after change score ∆Y = Y_after − Y_before show?

A. Observed change in the measured variable

B. Definitive proof that the intervention caused the change

C. The reliability of the measurement instrument

D. The leader’s percentage rank in the organization

Correct Answer: A. Observed change in the measured variable

Question 6

Which is a balancing measure?

A. Training attendance

B. Number of leadership workshops delivered

C. Service speed measured without any other indicator

D. Employee burnout monitored alongside productivity

Correct Answer: D. Employee burnout monitored alongside productivity

Question 7

A challenge requiring stakeholders to change assumptions, values, or routines is best described as:

A. A technical challenge

B. An adaptive challenge

C. A clerical task

D. A psychometric assessment

Correct Answer: B. An adaptive challenge

Question 8

Which statement best characterizes shared leadership?

A. All authority is removed from formal leaders.

B. One expert permanently directs the team.

C. Influence is reciprocal and may shift according to expertise and situation.

D. Tasks are delegated without changes in influence.

Correct Answer: C. Influence is reciprocal and may shift according to expertise and situation.

Question 9

A major risk of using AI in leadership assessment is:

A. It always eliminates human bias.

B. It can create opaque, biased, or overly precise evaluations.

C. It prevents the collection of any organizational data.

D. It makes confidentiality unnecessary.

Correct Answer: B. It can create opaque, biased, or overly precise evaluations.

Question 10

In the Northbridge case, why was a purely punitive performance regime likely to be ineffective?

A. The organization had no performance targets.

B. The problem involved workflow design, trust, reporting incentives, and competing definitions of performance.

C. Employees were prohibited from using technology.

D. The director had no formal authority.

Correct Answer: B. The problem involved workflow design, trust, reporting incentives, and competing definitions of performance.