LDR 320T — WEEK 3 PRACTICE & APPLY
CHAPTERS 9 & 13, MANAGER'S HOT SEAT, CLEARING MOTIVATION FOR TAKEOFF & APPLY
COMPREHENSIVE PRACTICE
2026/2027 EDITION
Leadership Theories and Practice — Motivation Theories, Employee Motivation Strategies, Applied Scenarios,
and Case Analysis
Course: LDR 320T (University of Phoenix) | Week 3: Practice Chapters 9 & 13, Manager's Hot Seat, Clearing Motivation
for Takeoff & Apply, Case Analysis | Format: 70 Multiple-Choice Questions (4 options, one best answer) | Suggested
Time: 105 Minutes
PRACTICE & APPLY EXAMINATION INSTRUCTIONS
1. This comprehensive practice set contains 70 questions in five sections: Chapter 9 – Motivation & Leadership
(Q1–Q15); Chapter 13 – Leadership & Employee Motivation (Q16–Q30); Manager's Hot Seat & Clearing Motivation
for Takeoff (Q31–Q45); Case Analysis – Acuity Insurance, The Container Store, Employee Motivation (Q46–Q60);
and Integrated Motivation & Leadership Applications (Q61–Q70).
2. Each question has four options (A–D) with exactly one correct answer. Select the single best response.
3. In this study edition, the correct option is marked [CORRECT], and the answer with a full rationale appears
immediately below each question for self-assessment. Hot Seat, Takeoff, and case items are self-contained: all
facts needed to answer appear within each question stem.
4. Cognitive coverage: 30% recall, 50% application, 20% analysis — approximately 75% of items are
scenario-based leadership and motivation situations.
Independently prepared study material aligned to the LDR 320T Week 3 topic area. This is a practice set and is not an official University of
Phoenix assignment or exam paper.
Section 1: Chapter 9 - Motivation & Leadership - Content and Process Theories (15
Questions)
Q1. In organizational behavior, motivation is formally defined as a process that accounts for an individual's:
A. Intelligence, education, and job title.
B. Direction (choice of behavior), intensity (effort expended), and persistence (how long effort is
sustained) toward a goal. [CORRECT]
C. Salary level relative to coworkers.
D. Physical stamina and attendance record.
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: Motivation is the internal process governing which behavior people choose, how hard they try, and how
long they persist. Intelligence, pay, and attendance are correlates or outcomes, not the definition.
LDR 320T | Week 3: Chapters 9 & 13, Manager's Hot Seat, Clearing Motivation for Takeoff & Apply | 2026/2027 Edition Page 1 of 24
, Q2. A new hospital employee has secure income and safe working conditions but spends her breaks alone
because no one on the unit has welcomed her. According to Maslow, which need now dominates her
motivational state?
A. Safety needs, since she is newly employed.
B. Esteem needs, since she has no friends at work.
C. Belongingness (social) needs, which become the active motivator once physiological and
safety needs are met. [CORRECT]
D. Self-actualization, since she has completed orientation.
Correct Answer: C
Rationale: Maslow's hierarchy activates needs in order: with lower needs satisfied, social belonging becomes the
pressing motive. Esteem and self-actualization become dominant only after belonging is reasonably met.
Q3. A marketing analyst is denied the promotion she sought, and shortly afterward she begins spending
excessive time socializing and organizing office events while her project work slips. Using Alderfer's ERG
theory, this pattern is best explained by:
A. Progression up the needs hierarchy after growth was satisfied.
B. Maslow's principle that esteem follows belonging.
C. Herzberg's hygiene-motivator distinction.
D. The frustration-regression principle - blocked growth needs cause regression to relatedness
needs, which are easier to satisfy. [CORRECT]
Correct Answer: D
Rationale: ERG's distinctive mechanism is frustration-regression: when growth is blocked, the person retreats to
lower-order needs such as relatedness. The other options describe movement up a hierarchy or unrelated
theories.
Q4. A company pays above-market salaries and has excellent facilities, yet engagement surveys show
employees are bored and indifferent. Herzberg's two-factor theory would diagnose this as:
A. Hygiene factors are well handled - preventing dissatisfaction - but motivators such as
achievement, recognition, meaningful work, and growth are absent, so employees are neither
dissatisfied nor engaged. [CORRECT]
B. Insufficient hygiene, so salaries should be raised further.
C. Proof that money is the strongest motivator of engagement.
D. A sign that motivation cannot be influenced by management.
Correct Answer: A
Rationale: Herzberg showed that hygiene (pay, conditions, policies) only removes dissatisfaction; engagement
requires motivators. Adding more hygiene to a hygiene-rich but motivator-poor job produces neutrality, not
enthusiasm.
LDR 320T | Week 3: Chapters 9 & 13, Manager's Hot Seat, Clearing Motivation for Takeoff & Apply | 2026/2027 Edition Page 2 of 24
, Q5. According to McClelland's learned-needs theory, an employee with a high need for achievement is most
likely to be motivated by:
A. Group harmony and cooperative assignments with no individual accountability.
B. Influence over others and competition for formal authority.
C. Challenging but attainable goals with clear personal responsibility and prompt feedback on
results. [CORRECT]
D. Guaranteed outcomes with no risk of failure.
Correct Answer: C
Rationale: High-nAch individuals want moderate difficulty, personal responsibility, and feedback - success must
be attributable to their own effort. Group-only accountability and influence-seeking fit affiliation and power needs,
and guaranteed outcomes remove the achievement itself.
Q6. A sales manager promises his team that mastering the new CRM will "pay off," but no one has been
trained on it and the system crashes routinely. According to expectancy theory, motivation is low because of:
A. Low valence - the reward is not valued.
B. Low effort-to-performance expectancy - employees do not believe their effort can produce
successful performance without training and working tools. [CORRECT]
C. High instrumentality - performance reliably leads to reward.
D. Equity concerns about coworkers' inputs.
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: The broken link here is expectancy: even maximal effort cannot produce performance when skills and
tools are missing. Valence and equity are not implicated by the facts, and high instrumentality would raise, not
lower, motivation.
Q7. Last quarter, a manager announced a bonus for hitting a quality target, then quietly canceled it when the
target was met. This quarter, no one pushes for the target. Using expectancy theory, the manager has
destroyed:
A. Expectancy - the belief that effort produces performance.
B. Valence - the attractiveness of the reward.
C. Goal commitment among employees.
D. Instrumentality - the belief that performance will actually be followed by the promised
reward. [CORRECT]
Correct Answer: D
Rationale: Withholding a delivered-upon reward teaches employees that performance does not lead to outcomes,
severing instrumentality. Their effort-performance belief and the reward's attractiveness were not the casualties -
trust in the payoff was.
LDR 320T | Week 3: Chapters 9 & 13, Manager's Hot Seat, Clearing Motivation for Takeoff & Apply | 2026/2027 Edition Page 3 of 24
CHAPTERS 9 & 13, MANAGER'S HOT SEAT, CLEARING MOTIVATION FOR TAKEOFF & APPLY
COMPREHENSIVE PRACTICE
2026/2027 EDITION
Leadership Theories and Practice — Motivation Theories, Employee Motivation Strategies, Applied Scenarios,
and Case Analysis
Course: LDR 320T (University of Phoenix) | Week 3: Practice Chapters 9 & 13, Manager's Hot Seat, Clearing Motivation
for Takeoff & Apply, Case Analysis | Format: 70 Multiple-Choice Questions (4 options, one best answer) | Suggested
Time: 105 Minutes
PRACTICE & APPLY EXAMINATION INSTRUCTIONS
1. This comprehensive practice set contains 70 questions in five sections: Chapter 9 – Motivation & Leadership
(Q1–Q15); Chapter 13 – Leadership & Employee Motivation (Q16–Q30); Manager's Hot Seat & Clearing Motivation
for Takeoff (Q31–Q45); Case Analysis – Acuity Insurance, The Container Store, Employee Motivation (Q46–Q60);
and Integrated Motivation & Leadership Applications (Q61–Q70).
2. Each question has four options (A–D) with exactly one correct answer. Select the single best response.
3. In this study edition, the correct option is marked [CORRECT], and the answer with a full rationale appears
immediately below each question for self-assessment. Hot Seat, Takeoff, and case items are self-contained: all
facts needed to answer appear within each question stem.
4. Cognitive coverage: 30% recall, 50% application, 20% analysis — approximately 75% of items are
scenario-based leadership and motivation situations.
Independently prepared study material aligned to the LDR 320T Week 3 topic area. This is a practice set and is not an official University of
Phoenix assignment or exam paper.
Section 1: Chapter 9 - Motivation & Leadership - Content and Process Theories (15
Questions)
Q1. In organizational behavior, motivation is formally defined as a process that accounts for an individual's:
A. Intelligence, education, and job title.
B. Direction (choice of behavior), intensity (effort expended), and persistence (how long effort is
sustained) toward a goal. [CORRECT]
C. Salary level relative to coworkers.
D. Physical stamina and attendance record.
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: Motivation is the internal process governing which behavior people choose, how hard they try, and how
long they persist. Intelligence, pay, and attendance are correlates or outcomes, not the definition.
LDR 320T | Week 3: Chapters 9 & 13, Manager's Hot Seat, Clearing Motivation for Takeoff & Apply | 2026/2027 Edition Page 1 of 24
, Q2. A new hospital employee has secure income and safe working conditions but spends her breaks alone
because no one on the unit has welcomed her. According to Maslow, which need now dominates her
motivational state?
A. Safety needs, since she is newly employed.
B. Esteem needs, since she has no friends at work.
C. Belongingness (social) needs, which become the active motivator once physiological and
safety needs are met. [CORRECT]
D. Self-actualization, since she has completed orientation.
Correct Answer: C
Rationale: Maslow's hierarchy activates needs in order: with lower needs satisfied, social belonging becomes the
pressing motive. Esteem and self-actualization become dominant only after belonging is reasonably met.
Q3. A marketing analyst is denied the promotion she sought, and shortly afterward she begins spending
excessive time socializing and organizing office events while her project work slips. Using Alderfer's ERG
theory, this pattern is best explained by:
A. Progression up the needs hierarchy after growth was satisfied.
B. Maslow's principle that esteem follows belonging.
C. Herzberg's hygiene-motivator distinction.
D. The frustration-regression principle - blocked growth needs cause regression to relatedness
needs, which are easier to satisfy. [CORRECT]
Correct Answer: D
Rationale: ERG's distinctive mechanism is frustration-regression: when growth is blocked, the person retreats to
lower-order needs such as relatedness. The other options describe movement up a hierarchy or unrelated
theories.
Q4. A company pays above-market salaries and has excellent facilities, yet engagement surveys show
employees are bored and indifferent. Herzberg's two-factor theory would diagnose this as:
A. Hygiene factors are well handled - preventing dissatisfaction - but motivators such as
achievement, recognition, meaningful work, and growth are absent, so employees are neither
dissatisfied nor engaged. [CORRECT]
B. Insufficient hygiene, so salaries should be raised further.
C. Proof that money is the strongest motivator of engagement.
D. A sign that motivation cannot be influenced by management.
Correct Answer: A
Rationale: Herzberg showed that hygiene (pay, conditions, policies) only removes dissatisfaction; engagement
requires motivators. Adding more hygiene to a hygiene-rich but motivator-poor job produces neutrality, not
enthusiasm.
LDR 320T | Week 3: Chapters 9 & 13, Manager's Hot Seat, Clearing Motivation for Takeoff & Apply | 2026/2027 Edition Page 2 of 24
, Q5. According to McClelland's learned-needs theory, an employee with a high need for achievement is most
likely to be motivated by:
A. Group harmony and cooperative assignments with no individual accountability.
B. Influence over others and competition for formal authority.
C. Challenging but attainable goals with clear personal responsibility and prompt feedback on
results. [CORRECT]
D. Guaranteed outcomes with no risk of failure.
Correct Answer: C
Rationale: High-nAch individuals want moderate difficulty, personal responsibility, and feedback - success must
be attributable to their own effort. Group-only accountability and influence-seeking fit affiliation and power needs,
and guaranteed outcomes remove the achievement itself.
Q6. A sales manager promises his team that mastering the new CRM will "pay off," but no one has been
trained on it and the system crashes routinely. According to expectancy theory, motivation is low because of:
A. Low valence - the reward is not valued.
B. Low effort-to-performance expectancy - employees do not believe their effort can produce
successful performance without training and working tools. [CORRECT]
C. High instrumentality - performance reliably leads to reward.
D. Equity concerns about coworkers' inputs.
Correct Answer: B
Rationale: The broken link here is expectancy: even maximal effort cannot produce performance when skills and
tools are missing. Valence and equity are not implicated by the facts, and high instrumentality would raise, not
lower, motivation.
Q7. Last quarter, a manager announced a bonus for hitting a quality target, then quietly canceled it when the
target was met. This quarter, no one pushes for the target. Using expectancy theory, the manager has
destroyed:
A. Expectancy - the belief that effort produces performance.
B. Valence - the attractiveness of the reward.
C. Goal commitment among employees.
D. Instrumentality - the belief that performance will actually be followed by the promised
reward. [CORRECT]
Correct Answer: D
Rationale: Withholding a delivered-upon reward teaches employees that performance does not lead to outcomes,
severing instrumentality. Their effort-performance belief and the reward's attractiveness were not the casualties -
trust in the payoff was.
LDR 320T | Week 3: Chapters 9 & 13, Manager's Hot Seat, Clearing Motivation for Takeoff & Apply | 2026/2027 Edition Page 3 of 24
