Transactional Leadership

Correct Answer: Balance transactional leadership with elements of transformational leadership to inspire and motivate the team.

In the given scenario, despite providing clear guidelines and tasks, the work efficiency is stagnant. This indicates that the current transactional leadership style of the project manager, which involves clear instructions and the reward-and-punishment mechanism, is not enough to boost efficiency. The best strategy here would be to balance transactional leadership with elements of transformational leadership. Transformational leadership inspires, motivates, and engages team members by focusing on the strengths of each team member and considering their individual interests. It navigates changes effectively, encouraging personal and professional growth. This type of leadership style is known to increase team morale and therefore increase efficiency. Assigning extra work hours and increasing workload is not a strategic solution, it may lead to team burnout and impact the overall project quality negatively. Changing the data center consolidation strategy isn't what's lacking here; it's not directly relevant to the project manager's leadership style or team performance. Hiring more workforce may not necessarily boost efficiency if the current team is not efficiently managed and motivated.

Correct Answer: Involve team members in task assignment and decision-making processes.

The most effective management approach in Agile projects is commonly accepted to be participatory, where team members are actively involved in decision-making processes. Giving team members a say in task assignments and decision-making not only improves communication but also increases their motivation and satisfaction, leading to more efficient results. The other answers are incorrect because: Assigning more tasks to team members to keep them busy might further demotivate the team and reduce their efficiency. Overloading team members will not solve the dissatisfaction problem; instead, it might add more stress and burnout. Taking over all tasks and completing the project alone is not realistic or efficient. It not only overburdens the project manager but also undermines the team’s spirit, resulting in reduced efficiency and effectiveness. Ignoring the dissatisfaction of the team members because the tasks are getting done does not address the root cause of the issue. Ignoring the team's dissatisfaction might lead to decreased productivity in the long run and could even lead to attrition.

Correct Answer: Introduce transformational leadership elements and address the problem from a motivational perspective.

The best way to rectify the situation would be to introduce transformational leadership elements and address the problem from a motivational perspective. This is because a transactional project leader relies on rewards and penalties, which eventually could lead to a lack in motivation and thus, a lack in performance. By introducing transformational leadership, one can inspire and motivate the team to excel and perform beyond their established standards, resulting in an improvement in performance Applying implicit threats of job security is not an effective solution, as it can instill fear and stress in the team members, which is not conducive to their performance Simply increasing the reward or penalty amount, like the other two answers suggest, are not necessarily going to result in better performance. If the team members are not motivated or do not understand the project's objectives well, no amount of reward or penalty can stimulate better performance.