Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Leadership

Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Northouse, 5th edition

Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Overview
 Skills Approach Perspective
 Three-Skill Approach (Katz, 1955)
 Skills-Based Model (Mumford, et al, 2000)
 How Does the Skills Approach Work?
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Skills Approach Description

Perspective Definition

 Leader-centered Leadership skills -

perspective The ability to use
 Emphasis on skills one’s knowledge
and abilities that and competencies to
can be learned accomplish a set of
and developed goals and objectives
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Three-Skill Approach
(Katz, 1955)

 Technical Skill
 Human Skill
 Conceptual Skill
 Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Basic Administrative Skills – Katz (1955)

Management Skills Necessary at Various
Levels of an Organization

 Leaders
need all three
skills – but,
skill
importance
changes
based on
level of
management
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Technical Skill
Technical skill
having knowledge about and being proficient in a
specific type of work or activity.
– Specialized competencies
– Analytical ability
– Use of appropriate tools and techniques

 Technical skills involve hands-on ability with a

product or process
 Most important at lower levels of management
 Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Human Skill
Human skill –
having knowledge about and being able to work
with people.
– Being aware of one’s own perspective and others’
perspectives at the same time
– Assisting group members in working cooperatively to
achieve common goals
– Creating an atmosphere of trust and empowerment of
members
– Important at all levels of the organization
 Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Conceptual Skill
Conceptual skill –
the ability to do the mental work of shaping meaning
of organizational policy or issues (what company
stands for and where it’s going)
– Works easily with abstraction and
hypothetical notions
– Central to creating and articulating a vision and
strategic plan for an organization
– Most important at top management levels
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Skills-Based Model
 Skills Model Perspective
 Skills-Based Model
– Competencies
– Individual Attributes
– Leadership Outcomes
– Career Experiences
– Environmental Influences
 Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Skills Model Description

(Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000)

Perspective Skills-Based Model

of Leadership
 Research studies (1990s)
goal: Capability model –
to identify the leadership Examines relationship
factors that create between a leader’s
exemplary job performance knowledge & skills & the
in an organization leader’s performance
 Emphasizes the Suggests many people
capabilities that make have the potential for
effective leadership leadership
possible rather than what
leaders do
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Skills Model
Three Components of the Skills Model
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Competency Skills
Competencies

Problem Solving Social Judgment Knowledge

• Creative ability to • Capacity to • The accumulation

solve new/unusual, understand people of information & the
ill-defined and social systems mental structures to
organizational - Perspective taking organize the
problems - Social perceptiveness information
- Behavioral flexibility
- Social performance
 Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Individual Attributes
Individual
Attributes

General Cognitive Crystallized

Motivation Personality
Ability Cognitive Ability
• Person’s intelligence • Intellectual • Three aspects of • Any
- Perceptual processing ability learned motivation characteristic
- Information processing or acquired - Willingness that helps people
over time - Dominance cope with
- General reasoning complex
- Creative & divergent - Social good organizational
thinking situations is
probably related
- Memory
to leader
performance
 Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Leadership Outcomes
Leadership
Outcomes

Problem Solving Performance

• Criteria = originality & quality of • Degree to which a
solutions to problem situations – good leader has successfully
problem solving involves creating performed his/her
solutions that are: assigned duties
- Logical
- Effective
- Unique
- Go beyond given information
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Skills Model
Skills Model of Leadership
 Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Career Experiences
Career
Experiences

Challenging Appropriate Hands-on

Mentoring Experience with
Assignments Training
Novelty
 Experience gained during career influences
leader’s knowledge & skills to solve complex
problems
 Leaders learn and develop higher levels of
conceptual capacity if they progressively confront
more complex and long-term problems as they
ascend the organizational hierarchy
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Environmental Influences
Environmental
Influences

Factors
Outside of Leader’s
Control

 Factors in a leader’s situation that lie outside of

the leader’s competencies, characteristics, and
experiences
– Outdated technology
– Subordinates’ skill levels
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

How Does the Skills

Approach Work?

 Focus of Skills Approach

 Strengths
 Criticisms
 Application
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Skills Approach
Focus Principal Research
Perspectives
 Focus is primarily  Katz (1955) suggests
importance of particular
descriptive – it leadership skills varies
describes depending where leaders
reside in management
leadership from hierarchy
skills perspective  Mumford et al. (2000)
 Provides structure suggest leadership
outcomes are direct result of
for understanding leader’s skilled competency
the nature of in problem solving, social
effective leadership judgment & knowledge
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Strengths
 First approach to conceptualize and create a
structure of the process of leadership around
skills
 Describing leadership in terms of skills makes
leadership available to everyone
 Provides an expansive view of leadership that
incorporates wide variety of components (i.e.,
problem-solving skills, social judgment skills)
 Provides a structure consistent with leadership
education programs
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Criticisms
Breadth of the skills approach appears
to extend beyond the boundaries of
leadership, making it more general,less
precise
Weak in predictive value; does not
explain how skills lead to effective
leadership performance
Skills model includes individual
attributes that are trait-like
Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

Application
The Skills Approach provides a way to
delineate the skills of a leader
It is applicable to leaders at all levels within
the organization
The skills inventory can provide insights into
the individual’s leadership competencies
Test scores allow leaders to learn about
areas in which they may wish to seek further
training