Reading Comprehension Questions

 Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organising, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. This distinction is absolutely crucial for our purposes here: Successful transformation is 70 to 90 per cent leadership and only 10 to 30 per cent management. Yet for historical reasons, many organizations today don't have much leadership. And almost everyone thinks about the problems here as one of managing For most of this century, as we created thousands and thousands of large organizations for the first time in human history, we didn't have enough good managers to keep all those bureaucracies functioning. So many companies and universities developed management programmes, and hundreds and thousands of people were encouraged to learn management on the job. And they did. But, people were taught little about leadership. To some degree, management was emphasized because it's easier to teach than leadership. But even more so, management was the main item on the twentieth-century agenda because that's what was needed. For every entrepreneur or business builder who was a leader, we needed hundreds of managers to run their ever growing enterprises.

Unfortunately for us today, this emphasis on management has often been institutionalized in corporate cultures that discourage employees from learning how to lead. Ironically, past success is usually the key ingredient in producing this outcome. The syndrome, as I have observed it on many occasions, goes like this: success creates some degree of market dominance, which in turn produces much growth. After a while keeping the ever larger organization under control becomes the primary challenge. So attention turns inward, and managerial competencies are nurtured. With a strong emphasis on management but not on leadership, bureaucracy and an inward focus take over. But with continued success, the result mostly of market dominance, the problem often goes unaddressed and an unhealthy arrogance begins to evolve. All of these characteristics then make any transformation effort much more difficult.
Arrogant managers can over-evaluate their current performance and competitive position, listen poorly, and learn slowly. Inwardly focused employees can have difficulty seeing the very forces that present threats and opportunities. Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions. And the lack of leadership leaves no force inside these organisations to break out of the morass.

 Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organising, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. This distinction is absolutely crucial for our purposes here: Successful transformation is 70 to 90 per cent leadership and only 10 to 30 per cent management. Yet for historical reasons, many organizations today don't have much leadership. And almost everyone thinks about the problems here as one of managing For most of this century, as we created thousands and thousands of large organizations for the first time in human history, we didn't have enough good managers to keep all those bureaucracies functioning. So many companies and universities developed management programmes, and hundreds and thousands of people were encouraged to learn management on the job. And they did. But, people were taught little about leadership. To some degree, management was emphasized because it's easier to teach than leadership. But even more so, management was the main item on the twentieth-century agenda because that's what was needed. For every entrepreneur or business builder who was a leader, we needed hundreds of managers to run their ever growing enterprises.

Unfortunately for us today, this emphasis on management has often been institutionalized in corporate cultures that discourage employees from learning how to lead. Ironically, past success is usually the key ingredient in producing this outcome. The syndrome, as I have observed it on many occasions, goes like this: success creates some degree of market dominance, which in turn produces much growth. After a while keeping the ever larger organization under control becomes the primary challenge. So attention turns inward, and managerial competencies are nurtured. With a strong emphasis on management but not on leadership, bureaucracy and an inward focus take over. But with continued success, the result mostly of market dominance, the problem often goes unaddressed and an unhealthy arrogance begins to evolve. All of these characteristics then make any transformation effort much more difficult.
Arrogant managers can over-evaluate their current performance and competitive position, listen poorly, and learn slowly. Inwardly focused employees can have difficulty seeing the very forces that present threats and opportunities. Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions. And the lack of leadership leaves no force inside these organisations to break out of the morass.

 Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organising, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. This distinction is absolutely crucial for our purposes here: Successful transformation is 70 to 90 per cent leadership and only 10 to 30 per cent management. Yet for historical reasons, many organizations today don't have much leadership. And almost everyone thinks about the problems here as one of managing For most of this century, as we created thousands and thousands of large organizations for the first time in human history, we didn't have enough good managers to keep all those bureaucracies functioning. So many companies and universities developed management programmes, and hundreds and thousands of people were encouraged to learn management on the job. And they did. But, people were taught little about leadership. To some degree, management was emphasized because it's easier to teach than leadership. But even more so, management was the main item on the twentieth-century agenda because that's what was needed. For every entrepreneur or business builder who was a leader, we needed hundreds of managers to run their ever growing enterprises.

Unfortunately for us today, this emphasis on management has often been institutionalized in corporate cultures that discourage employees from learning how to lead. Ironically, past success is usually the key ingredient in producing this outcome. The syndrome, as I have observed it on many occasions, goes like this: success creates some degree of market dominance, which in turn produces much growth. After a while keeping the ever larger organization under control becomes the primary challenge. So attention turns inward, and managerial competencies are nurtured. With a strong emphasis on management but not on leadership, bureaucracy and an inward focus take over. But with continued success, the result mostly of market dominance, the problem often goes unaddressed and an unhealthy arrogance begins to evolve. All of these characteristics then make any transformation effort much more difficult.
Arrogant managers can over-evaluate their current performance and competitive position, listen poorly, and learn slowly. Inwardly focused employees can have difficulty seeing the very forces that present threats and opportunities. Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions. And the lack of leadership leaves no force inside these organisations to break out of the morass.

 Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organising, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. This distinction is absolutely crucial for our purposes here: Successful transformation is 70 to 90 per cent leadership and only 10 to 30 per cent management. Yet for historical reasons, many organizations today don't have much leadership. And almost everyone thinks about the problems here as one of managing For most of this century, as we created thousands and thousands of large organizations for the first time in human history, we didn't have enough good managers to keep all those bureaucracies functioning. So many companies and universities developed management programmes, and hundreds and thousands of people were encouraged to learn management on the job. And they did. But, people were taught little about leadership. To some degree, management was emphasized because it's easier to teach than leadership. But even more so, management was the main item on the twentieth-century agenda because that's what was needed. For every entrepreneur or business builder who was a leader, we needed hundreds of managers to run their ever growing enterprises.

Unfortunately for us today, this emphasis on management has often been institutionalized in corporate cultures that discourage employees from learning how to lead. Ironically, past success is usually the key ingredient in producing this outcome. The syndrome, as I have observed it on many occasions, goes like this: success creates some degree of market dominance, which in turn produces much growth. After a while keeping the ever larger organization under control becomes the primary challenge. So attention turns inward, and managerial competencies are nurtured. With a strong emphasis on management but not on leadership, bureaucracy and an inward focus take over. But with continued success, the result mostly of market dominance, the problem often goes unaddressed and an unhealthy arrogance begins to evolve. All of these characteristics then make any transformation effort much more difficult.
Arrogant managers can over-evaluate their current performance and competitive position, listen poorly, and learn slowly. Inwardly focused employees can have difficulty seeing the very forces that present threats and opportunities. Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions. And the lack of leadership leaves no force inside these organisations to break out of the morass.

 Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organising, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. This distinction is absolutely crucial for our purposes here: Successful transformation is 70 to 90 per cent leadership and only 10 to 30 per cent management. Yet for historical reasons, many organizations today don't have much leadership. And almost everyone thinks about the problems here as one of managing For most of this century, as we created thousands and thousands of large organizations for the first time in human history, we didn't have enough good managers to keep all those bureaucracies functioning. So many companies and universities developed management programmes, and hundreds and thousands of people were encouraged to learn management on the job. And they did. But, people were taught little about leadership. To some degree, management was emphasized because it's easier to teach than leadership. But even more so, management was the main item on the twentieth-century agenda because that's what was needed. For every entrepreneur or business builder who was a leader, we needed hundreds of managers to run their ever growing enterprises.

Unfortunately for us today, this emphasis on management has often been institutionalized in corporate cultures that discourage employees from learning how to lead. Ironically, past success is usually the key ingredient in producing this outcome. The syndrome, as I have observed it on many occasions, goes like this: success creates some degree of market dominance, which in turn produces much growth. After a while keeping the ever larger organization under control becomes the primary challenge. So attention turns inward, and managerial competencies are nurtured. With a strong emphasis on management but not on leadership, bureaucracy and an inward focus take over. But with continued success, the result mostly of market dominance, the problem often goes unaddressed and an unhealthy arrogance begins to evolve. All of these characteristics then make any transformation effort much more difficult.
Arrogant managers can over-evaluate their current performance and competitive position, listen poorly, and learn slowly. Inwardly focused employees can have difficulty seeing the very forces that present threats and opportunities. Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions. And the lack of leadership leaves no force inside these organisations to break out of the morass.

 Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organising, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. This distinction is absolutely crucial for our purposes here: Successful transformation is 70 to 90 per cent leadership and only 10 to 30 per cent management. Yet for historical reasons, many organizations today don't have much leadership. And almost everyone thinks about the problems here as one of managing For most of this century, as we created thousands and thousands of large organizations for the first time in human history, we didn't have enough good managers to keep all those bureaucracies functioning. So many companies and universities developed management programmes, and hundreds and thousands of people were encouraged to learn management on the job. And they did. But, people were taught little about leadership. To some degree, management was emphasized because it's easier to teach than leadership. But even more so, management was the main item on the twentieth-century agenda because that's what was needed. For every entrepreneur or business builder who was a leader, we needed hundreds of managers to run their ever growing enterprises.

Unfortunately for us today, this emphasis on management has often been institutionalized in corporate cultures that discourage employees from learning how to lead. Ironically, past success is usually the key ingredient in producing this outcome. The syndrome, as I have observed it on many occasions, goes like this: success creates some degree of market dominance, which in turn produces much growth. After a while keeping the ever larger organization under control becomes the primary challenge. So attention turns inward, and managerial competencies are nurtured. With a strong emphasis on management but not on leadership, bureaucracy and an inward focus take over. But with continued success, the result mostly of market dominance, the problem often goes unaddressed and an unhealthy arrogance begins to evolve. All of these characteristics then make any transformation effort much more difficult.
Arrogant managers can over-evaluate their current performance and competitive position, listen poorly, and learn slowly. Inwardly focused employees can have difficulty seeing the very forces that present threats and opportunities. Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions. And the lack of leadership leaves no force inside these organisations to break out of the morass.

 Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organising, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles. This distinction is absolutely crucial for our purposes here: Successful transformation is 70 to 90 per cent leadership and only 10 to 30 per cent management. Yet for historical reasons, many organizations today don't have much leadership. And almost everyone thinks about the problems here as one of managing For most of this century, as we created thousands and thousands of large organizations for the first time in human history, we didn't have enough good managers to keep all those bureaucracies functioning. So many companies and universities developed management programmes, and hundreds and thousands of people were encouraged to learn management on the job. And they did. But, people were taught little about leadership. To some degree, management was emphasized because it's easier to teach than leadership. But even more so, management was the main item on the twentieth-century agenda because that's what was needed. For every entrepreneur or business builder who was a leader, we needed hundreds of managers to run their ever growing enterprises.

Unfortunately for us today, this emphasis on management has often been institutionalized in corporate cultures that discourage employees from learning how to lead. Ironically, past success is usually the key ingredient in producing this outcome. The syndrome, as I have observed it on many occasions, goes like this: success creates some degree of market dominance, which in turn produces much growth. After a while keeping the ever larger organization under control becomes the primary challenge. So attention turns inward, and managerial competencies are nurtured. With a strong emphasis on management but not on leadership, bureaucracy and an inward focus take over. But with continued success, the result mostly of market dominance, the problem often goes unaddressed and an unhealthy arrogance begins to evolve. All of these characteristics then make any transformation effort much more difficult.
Arrogant managers can over-evaluate their current performance and competitive position, listen poorly, and learn slowly. Inwardly focused employees can have difficulty seeing the very forces that present threats and opportunities. Bureaucratic cultures can smother those who want to respond to shifting conditions. And the lack of leadership leaves no force inside these organisations to break out of the morass.

 The Karnataka government's decision to file an appeal against the acquittal of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, is bound to be welcomed by all those who value probity in public life and believe that the courts are the right forums to take forward issues relating to corruption in high places. The Congress dispensation in Karnataka understandably took its time to arrive at a decision on whether to file an appeal in the Supreme Court. It has gone by sound legal principles by examining the recommendations of the Special Public Prosecutor, the State's Advocate-General and the Law Department. The primary question it had to contend with was raised by the legal wing of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee itself: what is Karnataka's interest in the outcome of the case? The argument was that the State had already discharged its duty by hosting the trial in Bengaluru, appointing a Special Judge and Special Public Prosecutor, obtaining a conviction in the trial stage and seeing it overturned by the High Court. Should the State go beyond this specified administrative function by filing an appeal in the Supreme Court, taking on the role of an aggrieved party? The question may appear valid, but to abandon a legal process midway is also untenable. The Supreme Court has made it clear that Karnataka is now playing the role of the prosecuting State and has stepped into the shoes of Tamil Nadu. Its duty now includes taking up the mantle of the aggrieved party and pursuing the legal process to its logical end.

Moreover, the Karnataka High Court judgment acquitting the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister is widely seen as flawed in many respects, especially in the computation of the quantum of 'disproportionate assets' that ultimately formed the basis of her acquittal. Special Public Prosecutor B.V. Acharya has said the arithmetical errors are glaringly obvious. Some aspects of the High Court's reasoning are controversial: it has included cash gifts of high value as legitimate income and given credence to a newspaper subscription scheme that had been termed fake by the trial court. It has gone zealously by a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that unexplained assets up to the value of 10 per cent of known income is acceptable, even though the anti-corruption law has since been amended to make disclosure as per statutory requirements the standard to assess legitimate income. The prosecution believes revisiting the computation itself will propel the quantum of 'disproportionate assets' beyond this 10 per cent limit. Overall, it will be in the public interest to have an authoritative pronouncement by the highest court on whether the trial court or the High Court was right in appreciating all the evidence. It will also be in Ms. Jayalalithaa's own interest that her exoneration if she succeeds in sustaining it is a vindication that clears her political path rather than one that depends on a conclusion seen to be perennially under dispute and in the realms of legal debate.

 The Karnataka government's decision to file an appeal against the acquittal of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, is bound to be welcomed by all those who value probity in public life and believe that the courts are the right forums to take forward issues relating to corruption in high places. The Congress dispensation in Karnataka understandably took its time to arrive at a decision on whether to file an appeal in the Supreme Court. It has gone by sound legal principles by examining the recommendations of the Special Public Prosecutor, the State's Advocate-General and the Law Department. The primary question it had to contend with was raised by the legal wing of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee itself: what is Karnataka's interest in the outcome of the case? The argument was that the State had already discharged its duty by hosting the trial in Bengaluru, appointing a Special Judge and Special Public Prosecutor, obtaining a conviction in the trial stage and seeing it overturned by the High Court. Should the State go beyond this specified administrative function by filing an appeal in the Supreme Court, taking on the role of an aggrieved party? The question may appear valid, but to abandon a legal process midway is also untenable. The Supreme Court has made it clear that Karnataka is now playing the role of the prosecuting State and has stepped into the shoes of Tamil Nadu. Its duty now includes taking up the mantle of the aggrieved party and pursuing the legal process to its logical end.

Moreover, the Karnataka High Court judgment acquitting the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister is widely seen as flawed in many respects, especially in the computation of the quantum of 'disproportionate assets' that ultimately formed the basis of her acquittal. Special Public Prosecutor B.V. Acharya has said the arithmetical errors are glaringly obvious. Some aspects of the High Court's reasoning are controversial: it has included cash gifts of high value as legitimate income and given credence to a newspaper subscription scheme that had been termed fake by the trial court. It has gone zealously by a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that unexplained assets up to the value of 10 per cent of known income is acceptable, even though the anti-corruption law has since been amended to make disclosure as per statutory requirements the standard to assess legitimate income. The prosecution believes revisiting the computation itself will propel the quantum of 'disproportionate assets' beyond this 10 per cent limit. Overall, it will be in the public interest to have an authoritative pronouncement by the highest court on whether the trial court or the High Court was right in appreciating all the evidence. It will also be in Ms. Jayalalithaa's own interest that her exoneration if she succeeds in sustaining it is a vindication that clears her political path rather than one that depends on a conclusion seen to be perennially under dispute and in the realms of legal debate.

 The Karnataka government's decision to file an appeal against the acquittal of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, is bound to be welcomed by all those who value probity in public life and believe that the courts are the right forums to take forward issues relating to corruption in high places. The Congress dispensation in Karnataka understandably took its time to arrive at a decision on whether to file an appeal in the Supreme Court. It has gone by sound legal principles by examining the recommendations of the Special Public Prosecutor, the State's Advocate-General and the Law Department. The primary question it had to contend with was raised by the legal wing of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee itself: what is Karnataka's interest in the outcome of the case? The argument was that the State had already discharged its duty by hosting the trial in Bengaluru, appointing a Special Judge and Special Public Prosecutor, obtaining a conviction in the trial stage and seeing it overturned by the High Court. Should the State go beyond this specified administrative function by filing an appeal in the Supreme Court, taking on the role of an aggrieved party? The question may appear valid, but to abandon a legal process midway is also untenable. The Supreme Court has made it clear that Karnataka is now playing the role of the prosecuting State and has stepped into the shoes of Tamil Nadu. Its duty now includes taking up the mantle of the aggrieved party and pursuing the legal process to its logical end.

Moreover, the Karnataka High Court judgment acquitting the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister is widely seen as flawed in many respects, especially in the computation of the quantum of 'disproportionate assets' that ultimately formed the basis of her acquittal. Special Public Prosecutor B.V. Acharya has said the arithmetical errors are glaringly obvious. Some aspects of the High Court's reasoning are controversial: it has included cash gifts of high value as legitimate income and given credence to a newspaper subscription scheme that had been termed fake by the trial court. It has gone zealously by a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that unexplained assets up to the value of 10 per cent of known income is acceptable, even though the anti-corruption law has since been amended to make disclosure as per statutory requirements the standard to assess legitimate income. The prosecution believes revisiting the computation itself will propel the quantum of 'disproportionate assets' beyond this 10 per cent limit. Overall, it will be in the public interest to have an authoritative pronouncement by the highest court on whether the trial court or the High Court was right in appreciating all the evidence. It will also be in Ms. Jayalalithaa's own interest that her exoneration if she succeeds in sustaining it is a vindication that clears her political path rather than one that depends on a conclusion seen to be perennially under dispute and in the realms of legal debate.