(C) The skills approach

Question 1

Skills approach

Answer 1

emphasis on skills and abilities which can be learned and developed. Personality still plays a role in this approach but main focus is knowledge and abilities

Question 2

Skills approach divided in 2 parts

Answer 2

first, general ideas of Katz, three basic administrative skills
second, Mumford et al. new skills-based model of organizational leadership

Question 3

Katz three-skills approach

Answer 3

leadership depends on 3 basic administrative skills:
-technical skills
-human skills 
-conceptual skills
key for leader to have all three skills

skills ability to use knowledge and competencies to accomplish goals/tasks
traits describe what leaders are

Question 4

Technical skill

Answer 4

knowledge and proficiency in specific type of work/activity (important at lower/middel management levels, top level depends on skilled subordinates for technical issues)

• analytical ability
• specialized area competencies
• ability to use appropriate tools/techniques

Question 5

Human skill

Answer 5

knowledge and ability to work with people, will also help leader to work effectively with subordinates to accomplish goals. Ready to adapt own ideas to others. skills equally important on all management levels

Question 6

Conceptual skill

Answer 6

ability to work with ideas and concepts, easy to work with abstractions and hypothetical notions. skills are key to create vision and strategic plan. Most important at top management levels, since without these skills organization jeopardized. Also important for middle management, but less in low management.

Question 7

Mumford et al. skill-based model, fice components

Answer 7

capability model, bc relationship between leader’s knowledge and skills and leader’s performance is examined

• Competencies
• Individual attributes
• Leadership outcomes
• Career experiences
• Environmental influences

Question 8

Competencies

Answer 8

• Problem-solving skills
• Social judgement skills
• Knowledge

these three are most influential on problem solving performance

Question 9

Problem-solving skills

Answer 9

ability to solve unusual organizational problems and define significant problems and info regarding the problem, formulate new understandings about problem and make plans to solve it

Question 10

Social judgement skills

Answer 10

capacity to understand both people and social systems. with these skills you can work with others to solve problems and win support withing organization to implement changes

• Perspective taking: type of social intelligence, to understand attidutes of others toward certain problem/solution
• Behavioral flexibility: capacity to change/adapt own behavior, given understanding of perspective others
• Social perceptiveness: having understanding and awerness of the functioning of others in organization
• Social performance: skill in persuasion and ability to communicate change is necessary by bringing leaders vision to followers based on understanding employees perspective.

Question 11

Knowledge

Answer 11

accumulation of info, and mental structure used to organize info. key for application and implementation of problem solving skills

Question 12

Individuals attributes

Answer 12

• General cognitive ability
• Crystallized cognitive ability
• Motivation
• Personality

Question 13

General cognitive ability

Answer 13

Also called fluid intelligence, since it expands into adulthood then later declines when getting older.
This is the intelligence a person has, including perceptual processing, general reasoning skills, memory skills, info processing and creative and divergent thinking

Question 14

Crystallized cognitive ability

Answer 14

intellectual ability learned overtime through experience. Also called acquiring intelligence, since it grows continually and not decline with aging

Question 15

Motivation

Answer 15

1. (critical step), leader willing to tackle complex organizational problems
2. leader express dominance to gain influence
3. leaders committed to social good of the organization

Question 16

Personality

Answer 16

Personality influences the development of leadership skills. in this model, every personality characteristic positively related to coping complex organization situations is also related to leader performance

Question 17

Leadership outcomes

Answer 17

• Effective problem solving

- Performance

Question 18

Effective problem solving

Answer 18

ability to solve problems is key determinant in capability model.
good problem solving determined by -originality and -quality of expressed solution to problems

Question 19

Performance

Answer 19

reflection on how well leader did, measures by external criteria

Question 20

Career experience

Answer 20

are experiences person acquires in their carrer path that influences their knowledge and skills to solve complex problems. To help leaders grow, give them challenging jobs, effective training, mentoring, hands-on experience, leaders develop competencies over time through experience. Seen as upper-level leaders, as solving more complex and less defined problems, which demand more human interaction and causes learning new abilities

Question 21

Environmental influences

Answer 21

factors outside of the abilities, experiences and characteristic of the leader. can be internal and external.
internal environmental influences: facilities, technology, expertise of subordinates and communication
external environmental influences: economic, social and political issues and natural disasters

Question 22

What way does skill approach work?

Answer 22

this is a descriptive approach; is provides structure to understand nature of leadership.

• in Katz thee-skill model, importance of leadership skills varies on which management levels leaders are in
• Mumford et al. model more complex picture on how skills related to effective leadership

Question 23

Why does skill approach work?

Answer 23

bc it provides map on how to reach effective leadership, so you know which capabilities to develop either through training of experience

Question 24

Strengths skills model

Answer 24

• leader-centered, stresses importance developing certain leadership competencies. first skill approach that created structure on process leadership
• intuitively appealing, feels logical that people can learn or develop certain skills
• wide view of leadership including large variety of components which can be further subdivided. Due to large amount of variables in model, captures many complexities of leadership other models may lack
• Provides us structure that equals curricula of many leadership education programs
• Gives structure on how to determine skills of leader, which can be used at all organizational levels
• Help identify strengths and weaknesses regarding technical, human, and conceptual skills
• Design a template for leadership development program

Question 25

Criticisms skills model

Answer 25

• skill approach so expansive, looks like it extends beyond boundaries of leadership. so model becomes more general and less precise in explaining leader’s performance
• Weak predictive value, bc does not explain how skills exactly lead to effective leadership performance
• Even though claims not to be trait model, major component includes individual attributes which are trait-like, so not strictly skills approach
• not appropriately applied to other contexts of leadership. model constructed by using large sample of only military personnel, thus unsure whether results can be generalized to population

Question 26

Application skills approach

Answer 26

-appealing for theorists and academics, but in practice not been used much. e.g. no formal training programs have been developed out of this approach