HROB2010 * Chapter 3 * Skills Approach PDF

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Chapter 3 Skills Approach THREE-SKILL APPROACH  Skills are what leaders can accomplish  Traits are who leaders are Leadership skills: defined in this chapter as the ability to use one’s knowledge and competencies to accomplish a set of goals or objectives 

Katz suggested that effective leadership depends on… o Technical Skills  Includes competencies in a specialized area, analytical ability, and the ability to use appropriate tools and techniques  Most important in the lower or middle levels of management o Human Skills  The ability to work with people  Important in all levels of management o Conceptual Skills  The ability to work with ideas, such as creating a vision and strategic plan for an organization  Most important at the top level of management

SKILLS MODEL  Instead of emphasizing what leaders do, the skills approach frames leadership as the capabilities that make effective leadership possible  Mumford characterized this model as the ‘capability model,’ because it examines the relationship between a leader’s knowledge and skills, and their performance  Believes that leadership capabilities can be developed over time through education and experience  Provides a structure for understanding the nature of effective leadership  5 components of the skill-based model include…  Competencies o Problem-solving skills  Creative ability to define and solve new and unusual organizational problems  Define the problem -> gather information -> formulate new understandings -> generate alternative solutions o Social judgment skills  Enable leaders to work with others to solve problems and support to implement change within an organization  Being sensitive to how your ideas fit in with others  Perspective taking: understanding the attitudes that others have toward a particular problem or solution  Social perceptiveness: insight and awareness into how others in the organization function  Behavioural flexibility: the capacity to change and adapt one’s behaviour in light of understanding of others’ perspectives in the organization

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Social performance: based on an understanding of followers’ perspectives, leaders need to be able to communicate their own vision to others o Knowledge  The accumulation of information and the mental structures (schema) used to organize that information Individual attributes o General cognitive ability (fluid intelligence)  One’s intelligence that grows through adulthood and declines with age  Includes perceptual processing, information processing, general reasoning skills, creative thinking capacities, and memory skills o Crystallized cognitive ability  Intellectual abilities (ideas and mental abilities) that are learned or acquired over time, through experience  Grows through adulthood and does not decline o Motivation  Leaders must be willing to tackle complex organizational problems  Leaders must be willing to express dominance and exert their influence  Leaders must be committed to the social good of the organization o Personality  Any personality characteristic that helps people cope with complex organizational situations is related to leader performance Leadership outcomes o Effective problem solving  Determined by the originality, uniqueness, logicality, effectiveness, and quality of solutions o Performance  Reflect how well the leader has done their job Career experience o Leaders are shaped by their experiences o The experiences a leader acquires influences their knowledge and skills to solve problems Environmental influences o Influences that lie outside the leader’s competencies, characteristics, and experiences o Internal environment influences – technology, facilities, expertise of subordinates, communication o External environment influences – economic issues, political issues, social issues, natural disasters

STRENGTHS OF THE SKILLS APPROACH  Stresses the importance of developing particular leadership skills  Appealing, as it makes leadership available to everyone  Provides an expansive view of leadership that incorporates a wide variety of components including problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, knowledge, individual attributes, career experiences, and environmental influences

Chapter 3 Skills Approach WEAKNESSES OF THE SKILLS APPROACH  The range of this approach seems to extend beyond the boundaries of leadership as the components become less precise  Weak in predictive value since it does not explain how skills lead to effective leadership performance  A major component in the model includes individual attributes, which are ‘trait-like’  It may not be suitable for other contexts of leadership, considering the model was constructed by observing military personnel...