Read the passage given below to answer the questions by choosing the correct options.
If we ask, "Why did such-and-such a group or organization, which was perfectly ordinary, become a high-performance team or an excellent organization?", the answer is often that they were inspired to raise their sights and standards by the vision, enthusiasm and drive of a particular leader. Therefore it is impossible to divorce effective teambuilding from effective leadership.
The ability to inspire others is a general characteristic of good leaders. It is essentially important if the group or organization is working in difficult conditions or adverse circumstances, where morale can easily fall.
To achieve excellence in results over a period of time in an organization, as in a football team, is not accidental. The various properties of groups identified in Part One — communication, decisions making, cohesiveness, morale, atmosphere, standards, procedures — are all found again in high-performance teams but to different degrees. The average work group and the exceptional team can be compared to two horses: both have the same muscles, legs lungs and other organs. But one is an ordinary riding horse in the local stables, the other is a three times winner of the Grand National. Why is one different from the other?
In the transformations of a work group into a team, and an ordinary team into a high-performance team, attention must be given to three crucially important elements; leadership, membership and common methods of working together.
What helps to boost morale of the team in a difficult situation is:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → being inspired by the leader
The second paragraph says that the ability to inspire others is a mark of good leaders and is "essentially important" when a group works in difficult conditions, "where morale can easily fall". Morale is the confidence and spirit of a group.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: hard work by the team — Incorrect. Wrong cause: the passage links morale in hard times to the leader's inspiration, not to the team's own effort.
Option 3: demotivation by the leader — Incorrect. Opposite meaning: to demotivate is to take away someone's will to work; it lowers morale.
Option 4: criticism by the leader — Incorrect. Not mentioned: criticism in a difficult situation would make morale fall further; the passage speaks only of inspiration.