Which of the following statements is true?

Objective cascading ensures alignment from corporate strategy down to departments, teams, and individuals. It does not require copying the exact same objective at every level. Instead, effective cascading can occur in two ways: (1) shared objectives where the same objective is relevant across levels (e.g., “Improve customer experience”), and (2) supporting objectives where lower-level objectives are tailored to the work that contributes to corporate outcomes (e.g., IT: “Improve system uptime,” Operations: “Reduce order cycle time,” both supporting customer experience). Option C reflects this best practice. Option A is too rigid and ignores the need for role-specific contribution. Option D is incorrect because individual objectives are often critical for accountability and execution, provided they are set carefully to avoid tunnel behavior. A common challenge is misalignment: teams choose local objectives that look good but don’t move strategic outcomes. Cascading should preserve a clear “line of sight,” using a KPI tree or strategy map to link individual and departmental KPIs to organizational scorecard measures.