Human beings, born with a drive to explore and experiment, thrive on l

Human beings, born with a drive to explore and experiment, thrive on learning. Unfortunately, corporations are oriented predominantly toward controlling employees, not fostering their learning. Ironically, this orientation creates the very conditions that predestine employees to mediocre performances. Over time, superior performance requires superior learning, because long-term corporate survival depends on continually exploring new business and organizational opportunities that can create new sources of growth.

To survive in the future, corporations must become “learning organizations,” enterprises that are constantly able to adapt and expand their capabilities. To accomplish this, corporations must change how they view employees. The traditional view that a single charismatic leader should set the corporation’s direction and make key decisions is rooted in an individualistic worldview. In an increasingly interdependent world, such a view is no longer viable. In learning organizations, thinking and acting are integrated at all job levels. Corporate leadership is shared, and leaders become designers, teachers, and stewards, roles requiring new skills: the ability to build shared vision, to reveal and challenge prevailing mental models, and to foster broader, more integrated patterns of thinking. In short, leaders in learning organizations are responsible for building organizations in which employees are continually learning new skills and expanding their capabilities to shape their future.

1) According to the passage,traditional corporate leaders differ from leaders in learning organizations in that former

(A) Encourage employees to concentrate on developing a wide range of skills
(B) Enable employees to recognize and confront dominant corporate models and to develop alternative models
(C) Make important policy decisions alone and then require employees in the corporation to abide by those decisions- these lines explain the answer- "Unfortunately, corporations are oriented predominantly toward controlling employees, not fostering their learning" and "The traditional view that a single charismatic leader should set the corporation’s direction and make key decisions is rooted in an individualistic worldview"
(D) Instill confidence in employees because of their willingness to make risky decisions and accept their consequences
(E) Are concerned with offering employees frequent advice and career guidance



2) Which of the following best describes employees behavior encouraged within learning organizations, as such organizations are described in the passage?

(A) Carefully defining one's job description and taking care to avoid deviation from it
(B) Designing mentoring programs that train new employees to follow procedures that have been used for many years
(C) Concentrating one`s efforts on mastering one aspect of a complicated task
(D) Studying an organizational problem, preparing a report, and submitting it to a corporate leader for approval
(E) Analyzing a problem related to productivity , making a decision about a solution , and implementing that solution

this line= "the ability to build shared vision, to reveal and challenge prevailing mental models, and to foster broader, more integrated patterns of thinking"

3) According to the author of the passage, corporate leaders of the future should do which of the following

(A) They should encourage employees put long-term goals ahead of short-term profits
(B) They should exercise more control over employees in order to constrain production costs
(C) They should redefine incentives for employees' performance improvement
(D) They should provide employees with opportunities to gain new skills and expand their capabilities- the last line of passage explains this answer
(E) They should promote individual managers who are committed to established company practices



4) The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) Endorse a traditional corporate structure
(B) Introduce a new approach to corporate leadership and evaluate criticisms of it
(C) Explain competing theories about management practices and reconcile them
(D) Contrast two typical corporate organizational structures
(E) Propose an alternative to a common corporate approach- here the main theme author is sticking to is endorsing 'learning organization'. Further he is explaining the importance of it. He also explains what was the traditional approach and how it should be replaced.

Human beings, born with a drive to explore and experiment, thrive on learning. Unfortunately, corporations are oriented predominantly toward controlling employees, not fostering their learning. Ironically, this orientation creates the very conditions that predestine employees to mediocre performances. Over time, superior performance requires superior learning, because long-term corporate survival depends on continually exploring new business and organizational opportunities that can create new sources of growth.

To survive in the future, corporations must become “learning organizations,” enterprises that are constantly able to adapt and expand their capabilities. To accomplish this, corporations must change how they view employees. The traditional view that a single charismatic leader should set the corporation’s direction and make key decisions is rooted in an individualistic worldview. In an increasingly interdependent world, such a view is no longer viable. In learning organizations, thinking and acting are integrated at all job levels. Corporate leadership is shared, and leaders become designers, teachers, and stewards, roles requiring new skills: the ability to build shared vision, to reveal and challenge prevailing mental models, and to foster broader, more integrated patterns of thinking. In short, leaders in learning organizations are responsible for building organizations in which employees are continually learning new skills and expanding their capabilities to shape their future.

1) According to the passage,traditional corporate leaders differ from leaders in learning organizations in that former

(A) Encourage employees to concentrate on developing a wide range of skills
(B) Enable employees to recognize and confront dominant corporate models and to develop alternative models
(C) Make important policy decisions alone and then require employees in the corporation to abide by those decisions
(D) Instill confidence in employees because of their willingness to make risky decisions and accept their consequences
(E) Are concerned with offering employees frequent advice and career guidance


2) Which of the following best describes employees behavior encouraged within learning organizations, as such organizations are described in the passage?

(A) Carefully defining one's job description and taking care to avoid deviation from it
(B) Designing mentoring programs that train new employees to follow procedures that have been used for many years
(C) Concentrating one`s efforts on mastering one aspect of a complicated task
(D) Studying an organizational problem, preparing a report, and submitting it to a corporate leader for approval
(E) Analyzing a problem related to productivity , making a decision about a solution , and implementing that solution



3) According to the author of the passage, corporate leaders of the future should do which of the following

(A) They should encourage employees put long-term goals ahead of short-term profits
(B) They should exercise more control over employees in order to constrain production costs
(C) They should redefine incentives for employees' performance improvement
(D) They should provide employees with opportunities to gain new skills and expand their capabilities
(E) They should promote individual managers who are committed to established company practices



4) The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) Endorse a traditional corporate structure
(B) Introduce a new approach to corporate leadership and evaluate criticisms of it
(C) Explain competing theories about management practices and reconcile them
(D) Contrast two typical corporate organizational structures
(E) Propose an alternative to a common corporate approach