Question

Read the following caselet and answer the question that follows.

Mr. Rajiv Singhal, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Loha India Ltd. (a steel manufacturing company), had just been visited by several other directors of the company. The directors were upset with the recent actions of the company president, Mr. Ganesh Thakur. They demanded that the board consider firing the president.

Mr. Thakur, recently appointed as president, had undertaken to solve some of the management-employee problems by dealing directly with individuals as often as possible. The company did not have a history of strikes or any other form of collective action and was considered to have a good work culture. However, Mr. Thakur felt that by dealing directly with individuals, he could show the management's concern for the employees. An important step Mr. Thakur took was to negotiate the wages of the supervisors with each supervisor one on one. In these negotiation meetings he did not involve anyone else, including the Personnel Department which reported to him, so that he could take an unbiased decision. After negotiation, a wage contract was drawn up for each supervisor. He felt this would recognise and reward the better performers. Mr. Thakur carried out this process for most of the supervisors, except those working the night shift. For them he drew up the contracts on his own, benchmarking the night shift supervisors' wages against the day shift supervisors' wages.

For several days, Ram Lal, a night shift supervisor, had been trying to get an appointment with Mr. Thakur about his wages. He was upset, not only because he could not see the president, but also because there had been no discussion about his wage contract before it was put into effect. As a family man with six dependents, he felt his weekly wage should be higher than what he had been given.

Last Thursday afternoon, Ram Lal stopped by the president's office and tried to see him. Mr. Thakur's secretary refused his request on the grounds that Mr. Thakur was busy. Angry, Ram Lal walked into the president's office and confronted the startled Mr. Thakur with his demand for a better wage. Mr. Thakur stood up and told Ram Lal to get out of his office and raise his grievance through the official channel. Ram Lal took a swing at the president, who in turn punched Ram Lal on the jaw and knocked him unconscious.

Which of the following managerial attributes does Mr. Thakur seem to lack the most?

• A. Emotional instability under pressure
• B. Proactive problem solving
• C. Ethical behaviour
• D. Emotional stability under pressure

Hint:

Focus on how Mr. Thakur reacted physically to Ram Lal's outburst, not on his earlier planning of the wage process.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

Step 1: Understanding the Question.
We need the one managerial quality Mr. Thakur most clearly failed to show, based on the final scene of the caselet.

Step 2: The key event.
When Ram Lal walked into his office without an appointment and confronted him about wages, Mr. Thakur did not stay calm or try to talk the situation down. Instead, he told Ram Lal to leave, and when Ram Lal swung at him, Mr. Thakur punched him back and knocked him unconscious.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation.
A manager facing an angry, upset employee in a tense, unplanned confrontation is expected to stay composed and de-escalate the situation, that composure under pressure is exactly what Mr. Thakur did not show, he escalated a heated argument into a physical fight.
'Emotional instability under pressure' describes the opposite of a lacking quality, it describes a trait he showed, not one he lacks, so it does not answer 'which attribute does he lack'.
'Proactive problem solving' does not fit either, Mr. Thakur was in fact proactive earlier in the caselet, he initiated the whole wage negotiation process on his own; the failure here is not about lack of initiative, it is about how he reacted in the moment.
'Ethical behaviour' is also not the best fit, punching an employee is poor judgment and poor self-control under provocation, but the caselet frames this moment as a loss of composure, not as a calculated unethical act.
'Emotional stability under pressure' is precisely the quality missing when he let a heated exchange turn into a physical confrontation instead of staying composed and handling it as a manager should.

Step 4: Final Answer.
Mr. Thakur seems to lack emotional stability under pressure the most.