Many leadership theories have provided evidence that leaders affect gr

We are told that the success of particular individuals does not affect group success. But we're not told whether individuals' attitudes affect group success. If the attitudes toward supervisors do affect group success, then analyzing the effects of supervisor traits on attitudes of the individuals whom they supervise WOULD be relevant.

I hope that helps!

Many leadership theories have provided evidence that leaders affect group success rather than the success of particular individuals. So it is irrelevant to analyze the effects of supervisor traits on the attitudes of individuals whom they supervise. Instead, assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at the group level.

Answer is E.

Explanation:- A group is not a separate entity. Its made up of individual. Every individual must act as a unit only then group will succeed. Now if the Leader/Supervisor is particularly bad, nasty or abusive to one person, then this person might try to make the supervisor look bad. He can do so by failing in the most important task assigned to him. Ultimately the success of the entire operation will be compromised and being the Leader,the supervisor will come across like an idiot and an incompetent fool. SO WE SEE THAT AN INDIVIDUAL CAN DESTROY THE WHOLE GROUP.

Therefore it is important to evaluate CAN THIS SCENARIO HAPPEN WHERE AN ANGRY OR HUMILIATED PERSON CAN THREATEN THE ENTIRE GROUPS SUCCESS?

What option matches this pre-thinking ?
OPTION E:- Whether individuals’ attitudes toward supervisors affect group success

Therefore E IS THE CORRECT ANSWER.


Which of the following would it be most useful to establish in order to evaluate the argument?

A. Whether supervisors’ documentation of individual supervisees’ attitudes toward them is usually accurate
B. Whether it is possible to assess individual supervisees’ attitudes toward their supervisors without thereby changing those attitudes
C. Whether any of the leadership theories in question hold that leaders should assess other leaders’ attitudes
D. Whether some types of groups do not need supervision in order to be successful in their endeavors
E. Whether individuals’ attitudes toward supervisors affect group success

OG Verbal 2017 New Question(Book Question: 117)[/quote]

Conclusion: So it is irrelevant to analyze the effects of supervisor traits on the attitudes of individuals whom they supervise. Instead, assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at the group level.

Which of the following would it be most useful to establish in order to evaluate the argument?


Yes it is accurate, even if it is accurate it doesn't affect the conclusion that "assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at the group level."
No it is not accurate, even in this case the conclusion stands tall i.e. "assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at the group level."
What role would the assessing of the attitude of the individual supervisee play?
Even if there is a leadership theory that does what is being asked in the answer option, or there isn't any theory that does what is asked. No affect on the conclusion.
Out of scope. If the group doesn't even need any supervision. There isn't any affect on the conclusion.
If something/attitude of an individual affect group success, then the conclusion goes for a toss here. Then instead of "assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at the group level.", we need to assess leadership effectiveness at individual level and not on the group level.
If attitude of the individual doesn't affect the success of the group, then the conclusion stands tall.

Success is not black and white - you measure it on a scale. Say revenue of 200 mil is good. Of 400 mil is very good. 800 mil is excellent etc.
Leaders affect group success so say a leader was able to help his team get 600 mil in revenue. He is a good leader. So the argument says that we do not need to analyse the impact of the leader on individual attitudes.

But what if individual attitudes affect group success? What if this leader was a bad leader as far as individual attitude is concerned and hence people are not happy with him. What if this individual attitude affected group success and actually revenue should have been 800 mil?

Think in terms of variables. Say A impacts B. But A impacts C too.
Now if we only measure how A impacts B, is it enough if we know that C impacts B too? Basically A is impacting B indirectly too by impacting C which in turn is impacting B.
Whether we need to worry about how A is impacting C depends on whether C is impacting B too. If C impacts B, then A's impact on B comes from two sources and we need to worry about both. If C does not impact B, then we can ignore C.

Here A is the leader, B is group success and C is individual attitude.
Leader impacts group success, we know.
Now, we need to worry about how leader impacts individual attitude too if individual attitude impacts group success too.

That is why (E) is correct.

Situation Many leadership theories have provided evidence that leaders affect the success of groups but not of individuals.

Reasoning What would be most helpful to know in order to evaluate how well the stated fact supports the conclusion that leadership effectiveness should be assessed only at the group level without considering supervisors' influence on the attitudes of the individuals they supervise? Even if leaders do not affect the success of the individuals they lead, they might still affect those individuals' attitudes. And those attitudes in turn might affect group success. If so, the argument would be weak. So any evidence about the existence or strength of these possible effects in the relationship between supervisors and their supervisees would be helpful in evaluating the argument.

A How accurately supervisors document their supervisees' attitudes is not clearly relevant to how much the supervisors affect those attitudes, nor to how much the attitudes affect group success.

B Even if assessing supervisees' attitudes would in itself change those attitudes, the person doing the assessment might be able to predict this change and take it into account. Thus, considering individual supervisees' attitudes might still be worthwhile.

C The argument is not about interactions among leaders, but rather about interactions between supervisors
and supervisees.

D The argument is not about groups without supervisors, or whether certain groups might be effective without a supervisor, but rather about how to assess the effectiveness of supervisors in groups that do have them.

E Correct. As explained above, if individual supervisees' attitudes affect group success, the argument would be weak. And probably individual supervisees' attitudes toward their supervisors are influenced by those supervisors. So knowing whether individual attitudes toward supervisors affect group success would be
helpful in evaluating the argument.

The correct answer is E.

summarizing the argument,
effectiveness of leadership must be evaluated at group level and NOT at the individual level.
This is because the leaders affect success of the group and NOT the success of individuals they supervise.
It is possible that for ex. individual employees working under a boss are not successful, but as a group, under the same boss, they are successful.
How is this possible? Is it possible that the boss has some great group policies but bad individual policies.
still the group is performing but individuals may not.

Let's look at options
A) Are we concerned about supervisor's documentation ? No.
B) Is it possible to check attitudes of employees toward boss, without changing those attitudes ?
Why are we even concerned about "checking employee attitudes toward boss" that too taking care
not changing them ? Issue at hand is leadership effectiveness should be evaluated at group level, not at individual level. This option takes us far from that issue at hand
C) Leaders testing other leader's attitudes. Strays away from issue at hand
D) Same as C
E) This one talks about group success. If individual attitude affects group success then leadership evaluation only at group level does not suffice(weakener). However, if individual attitude does not affect group success, then it's fine to conclude what the argument is concluding. In that case, this choice strengthens by negating a weakener. Also called closing the gap. Choice E is correct.

"Attitudes toward supervisors", as discussed in choice E, refers to individuals' attitudes toward supervisors.




The argument is about the possible effects of "supervisor traits" (either at the group level or at the individual level), so, only groups that actually have supervisors are relevant to the argument.

Consider a corporate structure with teams in NA, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Each team has its own manager.
Then there is the CEO to whom all managers report.

The argument says that we should look at the impact of the CEO on the entire company's success only, not on the managers. Are managers happy with the CEO is not relevant as per the argument.

But what if the NA manager doesn't like the CEO and is hence inciting trouble within his team and bad mouthing the CEO to his counterparts in other regions? The overall company may suffer because of that. Option (E) says that we need to figure this out - does the individuals’ attitudes toward supervisors affect group success? If it does, then it may not be enough to study the direct impact of the CEO on the company. If he is pulling down some individuals, the individuals may be pulling down the whole company too.

Only choice E is relevant for the argument.

P: As per evidence from many leadership theories - leaders affect success of groups and not the success of individuals.
IntermediateConclusion : so it is irrelevant to analyze the effect on individuals' attitude from their supervisors.
MainConclusion: leadership assessment for effectiveness should happen only at the group level.

Assumption: individual's attitude is good or bad (individual is happy or not happy with supervisors) toward supervisor, it will not impact to the group's success, which is parameter for effective leadership.

A. Whether supervisors’ documentation of individual supervisees’ attitudes toward them is usually accurate
Accurate or Inaccurate document will not impact anything on conclusion.

B. Whether it is possible to assess individual supervisees’ attitudes toward their supervisors without thereby changing those attitudes
assessing individual supervisees’ attitude toward their supervisors will not help to evaluate argument, as whether attitude is impacting to groups success or not is not given.

C. Whether any of the leadership theories in question hold that leaders should assess other leaders’ attitudes
Topic is changed, argument is about supervisors and supervisees' ; two leaders is not the topic of discussion.

D. Whether some types of groups do not need supervision in order to be successful in their endeavors
Argument is talking about group with Supervisor.

E. Whether individuals’ attitudes toward supervisors affect group success
Correct, matches with our Prethinking
For example if Individuals attitude will impact to other group members and eventually impact groups success, then it will weaken the main conclusion as it is saying that leadership assessment for effectiveness should happen only at the group level.

I marked option E, but had a hard time to understand how individual's attitude towards supervisor's affect group success. Had the correct option be individual's attitude affect group success, this makes more sense to me because answer to this argument is whether the affect of leadership leaves an impact on the individuals which may/may not affect the group success. Please help me in understanding how individual's attitude towards supervisor's affect group success?

Hi anairamitch180,
I marked option E but had a hard time to understand how individual's attitude towards supervisors affect the group. Had the answer be whether individual's attitudes affect the group, this makes more sense to me and an easy option to mark.

Interesting question, I think the main evaluation is to check whether attitudes are contagious/influential in general. Option E does this as the other side of the coin.

Many leadership theories have provided evidence that leaders affect group success rather than the success of particular individuals. So it is irrelevant to analyze the effects of supervisor traits on the attitudes of individuals whom they supervise. Instead, assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at the group level.

Known Information:
The leaders affects group rather than individuals

Stated conclusion:
Irrelevant to analyze the effects of supervisor traits on attitudes of individuals whom they supervise. Instead, assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at group level.

Analysis:
The group is nothing but the collection of individuals. So its possible that the individual's traits might affect the group. We need to look for an option that states that the individual might affect the group.

A. Whether supervisors’ documentation of individual supervisees’ attitudes toward them is usually accurate - Irrelevant

B. Whether it is possible to assess individual supervisees’ attitudes toward their supervisors without thereby changing those attitudes - This does not give information about our question

C. Whether any of the leadership theories in question hold that leaders should assess other leaders’ attitudes - Out of scope

D. Whether some types of groups do not need supervision in order to be successful in their endeavors - Out of scope

E. Whether individuals’ attitudes toward supervisors affect group success - Perfect. This one says that individual attitudes affect group success. This is inline with our analysis.

Ans: E

If we re-write option E. as Yes, individuals’ attitudes toward supervisors affects group success, then it becomes important to analyze the effects of supervisor traits on the attitudes of individuals whom they supervise.

Hence option E is most useful to establish in order to evaluate the argument.

Dear VeritasKarishma and GMATNinja

I have been confused a lot by choice E. Could you please explain why it is considered correct?

My doubts:
If we already have a way to assess leadership effectiveness, assessing at the group level, then I am not sure how also assessing individual attitudes helps, even if those attitudes affect success. Either the group succeeded or it didn't, whatever the individual attitudes may be and however they may affect success.

In other words, this choice suggests the factor that affects "group success". However, the author concerns only the result of the success, not how the success is affected/derived from.

Whatever factors that affect the "group success", if the group succeeds, then the leader is effective.

Thank you in advance!

Understanding the passage

Many leadership theories have provided evidence that leaders affect group success rather than the success of particular individuals.

• Many (which means greater than 2) theories have provided proof that leaders have an impact only on group success and not on individual success.

So, it is irrelevant to analyze the effects of supervisor traits on the attitudes of individuals whom they supervise.

• Since leaders only have an impact on group success, it is useless to examine the impacts of supervisor traits on the behaviors of individuals whom the leaders supervise.

Instead, assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at the group level.

• Because the effects of supervisor traits impact only at group levels, the evaluation of the effectiveness of leadership should be done only by its impact on the group level.

Conclusion: The author suggests that it is useless to examine the impact of supervisor traits on individuals; instead, the assessment should preferably be done on the success of a group.

Pre-thinking

Falsification Question -

In what scenario – will it NOT be irrelevant to analyze the effects of supervisor traits on individuals whom the leaders supervise?
Given that:
(i) Many theories provided proof that leaders have an impact on group success rather than individual success.

Thought Process
Since many leadership theories had provided evidence that leaders have an impact on group success rather than individual success, it is pointless to assess the impact of supervisor traits on individuals. Thus, to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership, one must analyze the impact only on the success of the group.

Falsification Condition – What if the attitude of an individual towards the leader negatively affect group success?
• The negative attitude of an individual toward the leader will bring down the group success.
• In this case, the impacts of the supervisor’s traits cannot be assessed solely on the success of a group. This falsification condition would break the author’s conclusion.

Assumption: The attitude of an individual towards the leader does not negatively affect group success.

Answer Choice Analysis

(A) Whether supervisors’ documentation of individual supervisees’ attitudes toward them is usually accurate INCORRECT
• Since the conclusion of the passage states that it is useless to examine the impact of supervisor traits on individuals, it does not matter if the documentation is accurate or not. The documentation may or may not be accurate, but this information does not affect the conclusion of the passage.

(B) Whether it is possible to assess individual supervisees’ attitudes toward their supervisors without thereby changing those attitudes INCORRECT
• Even if the attitudes of individual supervisees’ change, according to the conclusion, it would still be ineffective in assessing leadership effectiveness. Therefore, this option is incorrect.

(C) Whether any of the leadership theories in question hold that leaders should assess other leaders’ attitudes INCORRECT
• The passage does not talk about leaders assessing other leaders’ attitudes. The passage talks about the assessment of leadership impact on groups and individuals. The information in this option is completely irrelevant to our discussion.

(D) Whether some types of groups do not need supervision in order to be successful in their endeavors. INCORRECT
• The passage talks only about the groups which need supervision or the groups that undergo supervision. The passage is not concerned with other groups that do not need supervision. Therefore, this option is out of scope.

(E) Whether individuals’ attitudes toward supervisors affect group success CORRECT
• This option is in line with our pre-thinking. Group success is dependent on the right attitude of individuals; thus, individual attitude affects group success.
• Variance Test
o Yes – Individuals’ attitude towards supervision affects group success.
o If individuals’ attitude towards supervision affects group success, then the impact of supervisor traits on individuals is not irrelevant in assessing leadership effectiveness. This would weaken our belief in the conclusion.
o No – Individuals’ attitude towards supervision does not affect group success.
o If individuals’ attitude towards supervision does not affect group success, then our belief in the conclusion is strengthened. This shows that group success is not dependent on the individuals’ attitude towards supervision, and only group success should be evaluated for leadership effectiveness.