Questions... Chapter 3 and 4

Skills Approach

Chapter 3

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Overview

 Skills Approach Perspective

 Three-Skill Approach (Katz, 1955)

 Skills-Based Model (Mumford et al., 2000)

 How Does the Skills Approach Work?

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Skills Approach Description

Perspective

 Leader-centered perspective

 Emphasis on skills and abilities that can be learned and developed

Definition

 Leadership skills: The ability to use one’s knowledge and competencies to accomplish a set of goals and objectives

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Three-Skill Approach (Katz, 1955)

 Technical Skill

 Human Skill

 Conceptual Skill

Basic Administrative Skills--Katz (1955)

 Leaders need all three skills-- but relative importance changes based on level of management

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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

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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

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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

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Skills-Based Model  Skills Model Perspective

 Competencies  Individual Attributes

 Leadership Outcomes

 Career Experiences

 Environmental Influences

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Skills Model Description (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000)

Perspective

 Research studies (1990s) goal: to identify the leadership factors that create exemplary job performance in an organization

 Emphasizes the capabilities that make effective leadership possible rather than what leaders do

Skills-Based Model of Leadership

 Capability model-- Examines relationship between a leader’s knowledge & skills & the leader’s performance.

 Suggests many people have the potential for leadership

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Skills Model

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Competencies SkillsCompetencies Skills

Problem SolvingProblem Solving

Creative ability to solve new/unusual, ill- defined organizational problems

Social JudgmentSocial Judgment

Capacity to understand people and social systems - Perspective taking - Social perceptiveness - Behavioral flexibility - Social performance

KnowledgeKnowledge

The accumulation of information and the mental structures to organize the information

Nine Key Problem Solving Skills - Mumford, Todd, Higgs, and McIntosh, 2017

 1. Problem definition  2. Cause/goal analysis  3. Constraint analysis  4. Planning  5. Forecasting  6. Creative thinking  7. Idea evaluation  8. Wisdom  9. Sense making/visioning

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Hypothetical Relationships of Problem-Solving Skills

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Individual AttributesIndividual Attributes

General Cognitive Ability

General Cognitive Ability

Person’s intelligence  Perceptual

processing  Information

processing  General reasoning  Creative & divergent

thinking  Memory

Crystallized Cognitive Ability

Crystallized Cognitive Ability

Intellectual ability learned or acquired over time

MotivationMotivation

Three aspects of motivation

 Willingness

 Dominance

 Social good

PersonalityPersonality

Any characteristic that helps people cope with complex organizational situations is probably related to leader performance

Leadership OutcomesLeadership Outcomes

Problem SolvingProblem Solving

Criteria = originality and quality of solutions to problem situations-- good problem-solving involves creating solutions that are:

 Logical  Effective  Unique  Go beyond given

information

PerformancePerformance

Degree to which a leader has successfully performed his/her assigned duties

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Career ExperiencesCareer Experiences

Challenging Assignments Challenging

Assignments MentoringMentoring Appropriate

Training Appropriate

Training Hands-on

Experience with Novelty

Hands-on Experience with

Novelty

 Experience gained during career influences leader’s knowledge and 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

Environmental Influences  Factors in a leader’s situation that lie outside of

his or her competencies, characteristics, and experiences – Internal environmental influences--For example,

Outdated technology, skill level of employees – External environmental influences--For example,

Economic, political, or social issues; natural disasters

How Does the Skills Approach Work?

 Focus of skills approach

 Strengths

 Criticisms

 Application

Skills Approach

Focus

 Focus is primarily descriptive--it describes leadership from skills perspective

 Provides structure for understanding the nature of effective leadership

Principal Research Perspectives

 Katz (1955) suggests importance of particular leadership skills varies depending where leaders reside in management hierarchy

 Mumford, Campion, and Morgeson (2007) suggest higher levels of all skills needed at higher levels of hierarchy

 Mumford, Zaccaro, and Harding et al. (2000) suggest leadership outcomes are direct result of leader’s skilled competency in problem-solving, social judgment, and knowledge

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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

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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

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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.

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